 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: cjb206
Date: 2013-04-17 10:03
New to the forum here,
Have been curious about wide bore instruments for a while and had the chance to play a Rossi Viennese Bore instrument in Howarth the other day (15.2mm bore I believe). I think its the first time I've had access to one of these to try out in store so was quite excited after hearing so many complimentary things about their craftsmanship and sound.
Was immediately impressed by the distinctive tone I could produce. And there were many of the good qualities I have found when trying out second hand B&H 1010's with a similar bore. However, as with the 1010's (but much worse), the throat notes starting from F (curiously),G,G#,A,Bb had some serious problems. The intonation was really wacky and very difficult to centre the note; and all had a distinctively poor, muffled/nasal timbre sticking out from the rest of the range of the instrument. Obviously this is an issue on most clarinets wide bore or not, but it was much worse than I had anticipated and there was very little I could do in terms of resonance fingerings to correct it.
However, I tried the instrument out using my own Vandoren CL4 mouthpiece as the shop assistant (usually very knowledgeable) suggested the instrument was designed to work well with standard mouthpieces. I took that at face value, but in hindsight question it since the instrument is sold with a Rossi wide bore mouthpiece and I'm familiar with the fact that most most makers of wide bore instruments acknowledge their instruments wont work well without a custom bored mouthpiece (alla Peter Eaton/Pillinger). I did mention the issue to the shop staff and they sort of shrugged and said 'that's just the problem with wide bore'. Would have interrogated/tested further but had to get on with other stuff.
Does anyone have any idea whether the mouthpiece bore would help correct the throat notes? Felt it was such a fab instrument otherwise that I might wish to buy one.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2013-04-17 12:07
I didn't realize until your post just how big the Viennese bore was (in this case over 15mm).
Wow, I always thought the Boosey 1010s were singular in their bore size !!!!
My experience with the Booseys is that there IS a very particular bored mouthpiece that MUST be used which is cylindrical in nature. The acoustic properties are NOT interchangeable between the French bore (which is conical.....having a taper) and the cylindrical mouthpieces. So whether you use a French mouthpiece on a 1010 (or your 15.2mm Viennese) or a 1010 mouthpiece on a French clarinet, NEITHER will work !!!!! The intonation and response will be irreparable.
...................Paul Aviles
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2013-04-17 18:23
I agree with the comments above re the B&H 1010 and it's mouthpiece, however, this may not automatically apply to a Viennese bore if other attributes such as tone hole size, shape and placement are uniquely designed for that bore.
Several German makers use, or have used, relatively large bores ( >15 mm ) on their German and Reform Boehm instruments without needing a strictly parallel bore mouthpiece such as 1010 does.
I suggest an email to Rossi should clarify the requirements very easily.
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Author: Paula S
Date: 2013-04-17 20:32
Email Ed Pillinger LONDON.
He is so helpful and has made me a superb early Boosey and Co copy mouthpiece which works beautifully with my 1010s and my Peter Eatons.
http://www.pillingermouthpieces.co.uk/
Also the voicing around the throat notes seems to be quite important on my two wide bore intruments. I use an aw sound for the throat A and and below and an oooh for the Bb. If you push too hard you can make the note flat so get your tuner out and and learn to feel how much oomph you need to give it to get it in tune ;-) Also play around with your resonance fingerings. For me middle finger only on R hand works well on both intruments, but we are all different! I also need to feel where on my body the notes resonate and for me it is directly in front of my nose.
Post Edited (2013-04-17 20:43)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2013-04-18 09:18
Gosh Norman you bring up the REAL German clarinet which is another particular acoustic combination. My Wurlitzers had mouthpieces about the size of what we in the States might think of as a "C" clarinet mouthpiece. They were from what I could determine conical bore and yet with all of this they were matched to what I was to understand a larger bore for Wurlitzer (circa 1980) though I never knew the dimensions.
The mouthpiece matching on REAL German clarinets is easy because the tenons are much bigger and wont even fit into a French barrel. Going the other way (French mouthpiece to German barrel), the mouthpiece just rattles around in the barrel. This goes for Hammerschmidts as well (REAL Viennese clarinets).
So what Rossi calls Viennese is anybody's guess.
.................Paul Aviles
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Author: cigleris
Date: 2013-04-18 11:26
Paul,
Real Viennese clarinets have that bore size so Rossi is right.
Peter Cigleris
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Author: cjb206
Date: 2013-04-21 19:44
Thanks for all the responses - will definitely contact Pillinger and Rossi to dig a bit further.
A colleague who plays on Eatons also gave me some advise on voicing the throat notes on her instruments which seemed useful. I think the solution seems to go: get a proper custom mouthpiece for the instrument, and then spend some time learning to re-voice some throat notes (also colleague described a few useful resonance fingerings suggested to her by Brymer!).
Anyway all this may just be an interesting academic exercise considering the price tag.
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