 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: acermak
Date: 2013-09-25 21:30
Hi, I've been playing soprano clarinet for a year now and am currently also trying to learn to play the contra alto clarinet. My instructor teaches me for an hour a week and for about half of that we do soprano in which I play etudes and we play duets together and for the contra part, we play mixed duets with him playing Bb bass and I playing Eb contra.
The problem is, the book series of duets we're working with (Duets for All) have altissimo notes for the contra and I can't voice those notes right now. I mean, I just started playing it a few weeks ago. I'm perfectly fine playing demisemiquavers on the CAC so rhythm isn't really a problem, it's just the high note voicings I can't do.
Does anyone have a suggestion for a duet series we could do that wouldn't immediately throw me into playing altissimo notes but would be interesting and possible to play in our mixed instrument scenario?
Thanks for any suggestions.
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Author: davyd
Date: 2013-09-26 03:02
A bit obvious perhaps, but: read the material down an octave? I'm sure a contra sounds lovely in its altissimo register, but that's not where the instrument's true purpose resides.
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Author: LCL
Date: 2013-09-26 12:47
I agree with the comment above regarding the range of the contralto. Having played a Selmer for about 13 years, where I've read from the Bari sax, bassoon and tuba parts, I have never needed to play in the altissimo.
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Author: acermak
Date: 2013-09-26 14:26
I checked out Bach's Two Part Inventions, it might very well hit the mark here. Also, I had not thought of going an octave down, but that might just do the trick, too.
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Author: acermak
Date: 2013-09-27 05:11
And finding the fingerings at http://home.gethome.no/terje_bjorn.lerstad/altissimo.html
helped a lot. I'm now good to as high as the Duets For All is going to make me go (and a few tones higher).
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Author: lowreed ★2017
Date: 2013-09-27 16:40
I've been playing duets for years with my bass and contra students using french horn duets. They don't get up into the problematic altissimo register and the lower duet part often is written below the treble staff.
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