 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: mmatisoff
Date: 2016-09-28 16:52
The other night, I picked up my Evette & Schaeffer Modele and began playing. At first, everthing was fine, hen suddenly it all went south. I couldn't get the horn to play on key or in tune. I had just finished practicing with my Opus so I knew I was playing the correct transposed key.
I'm going to bring the clarinet to the repair shop this weekend. Only thing is, it was given to me, so before I lay out a lot of money, I want to make sure I know what the technician should be looking for. I had one store look the Opus over. They didn't catch anything. It needed new pads, keys were bent, screws were loose, etc. Today, it's a force to reckon with.
The pads on the E&S are new, I looked for any bent keys (nothing obvious), loose screws, etc.
Can you suggest what else I should be checking?
Thanks,
M
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2016-09-28 18:13
Was it squeaking or over-blowing a lot?
This is very unlikely -- but the register tube itself my be leaking. OR the adjustment screw on the throat tone G# key might be touching the A key and causing the G# to vent (there should be some play here -- when you gently push the A key it should not immediately push the G# key up). OR the if the rod that screws the G# key in place has worked it's way out, that could also cause a leak.
Or a crack. Or the trills keys not covering properly.
Many "or"s. Good luck and let us know what it was!
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2016-09-28 18:14
With a flashlight, take a look up the inside of each section and make sure there's no foreign object in there. If the clarinet sat around unused for years, maybe something inside (fluff or fabric from a stuck swab in days of yore, for instance) migrated when you started using the clarinet and got into a position where it's fouling up the bore.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: pewd
Date: 2016-09-28 18:57
Another possibility: a popped spring. Check the top most ring - top joint - make sure a spring didn't pop off the key.
- Paul Dods
Dallas, Texas
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2016-09-28 22:21
What more precisely (if you can) do you mean by "I couldn't get the horn to play on key or in tune?" Are the notes coming out at all? Does the problem begin to appear all the way up at the throat (G4-Bb4)? or somewhere lower on the instrument? "On key" isn't clear to me at all. "[Not] in tune" I understand to mean that notes are playing but are simply flatter or sharper than they should be (and were before this started).
Did you change anything that could have caused unexpected consequences?
The repair person will be the best one to work out what's wrong. All you'll get here are general guesses about what can cause a clarinet to malfunction, but it would help if you could zero in more clearly on what's actually malfunctioning.
Karl
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Author: mmatisoff
Date: 2016-09-29 00:58
It plays off key using a tuner, i.e. Bb transpose. I thought maybe I had set the tuner wrong; however, the Opus and the Yamaha play perfectly. I get A for Bb, G F for E, for F#, etc. all the way from low E through the throat tones.
I can't figure out why it went out of tune so quickly.
M
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Author: bmcgar ★2017
Date: 2016-09-29 01:19
I'm with Tobin on checking the adjustment on the Ab key. There has to be some play so that, when the A key pad expands, it doesn't open the Ab tone hole.
I think that, in the last year, I've "fixed" at least five clarinets that "wouldn't play" for people by merely backing off on the adjustment screw.
(I face away from the owners when I do this. They think it's magic!)
Occam's razor; try the simplest thing first.
B.
Post Edited (2016-09-29 01:20)
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2016-09-29 06:08
bmcgar wrote:
> I think that, in the last year, I've "fixed" at least five
> clarinets that "wouldn't play" for people by merely backing off
> on the adjustment screw.
>
But that's the problem - Martin doesn't say that it "doesn't play" but that it suddenly plays out of tune.
mmatisoff wrote:
> It plays off key using a tuner, i.e. Bb transpose. I thought
> maybe I had set the tuner wrong; however, the Opus and the
> Yamaha play perfectly. I get A for Bb, G F for E, for F#, etc.
> all the way from low E through the throat tones.
>
> I can't figure out why it went out of tune so quickly.
If the A key is bring forced up by a badly adjusted screw, he's probably not getting anything much below G4 or F#4 at all, in or out of tune.
Something hanging down into the bore *might* cause the clarinet to go generally out of tune (apparently some notes are sharp and some flat). So the simplest thing might be, as Lelia's post suggested, to look for something foreign in the bore, especially in the mouthpiece or barrel.
A pad that should be open but is partially closed (torn pad, bent key) might make some notes immediately around it (mostly above) flat (the pad would have to be closed for notes below it), but it's hard to imagine a single mechanical problem that would affect the entire instrument by making the tuning drastically different - assuming there hasn't been some kind of confusion and accidental swap of barrels.
To Martin, the more specific you can be about what notes are affected and in what way, the better a chance there is someone could guess the cause here. But your path of least frustration, IMO, is still to play on another instrument until you can get the E&S to a competent repair person.
Karl
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2016-09-29 07:40
>> If the A key is bring forced up by a badly adjusted screw, he's probably not getting anything much below G4 or F#4 at all, in or out of tune. <<
A leak there will gradually "kill" the notes, starting from the upper clarion and continue from there. It can be small enough to allow all notes to play, or not up to a specific note, making some notes a little more difficult, depending on size. It definitely doesn't affect intonation so significantly without causing many other issues.
>> I get A for Bb, G F for E, for F#, etc. all the way from low E through the throat tones. <<
This is not clear. Did you mistype Ab? Did you mean it is wrong (i.e. actually A)? Sounds like this is for the good clarinets. The rest of the sentence is even more vague.
"on key or in tune"
What does that mean? What is the difference specifically?
If you can be more specific and clear about the problem maybe someone can have a good guess what can cause it. Do all notes come out fine? Only intonation is bad? Is every single note problematic and by the same amount? If only some notes are problematic, which ones? etc.
We can speculate for hours and a good repairer might be able to find the problem in minutes if they can check the clarinet.
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Author: mmatisoff
Date: 2016-09-29 13:42
My sincerest apologies to everyone who was kind enough to answer this question.
What suddenly went wrong was that the tuner, in the short interval between changing from one instrument to the other, stopped working correctly. I haven't figured out what the problem is yet, but the exact same software on my android phone worked fine while the Galaxy 7 notepad stopped working correctly. Too much research took me down the wrong path. I should have just used critical thinking and logic to solve the problem. It works with everything else in life (at least for me).
Again, sorry for the confusion. My next step is to reload the software and find a fix a fix for the problem. -- M
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2016-09-29 15:01
Reloading the software is cheaper than fixing the clarinet -- so that's good news!
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2016-09-29 17:03
At least you didn't do something drastic to the clarinet to fix it. Though if it had worked, perhaps you would have discovered an easy and effective way to shift clarinets from Bb to A or even B natural "on the fly". Future clarinet designs, perhaps.
My engineering brain is trying to remember similar stories where something that was AOK got "fixed" as a result of faulty measurements- or at least removed from service and/or panicked populace. I'm sure it happens all the time, but I mean some infamous episode. I'll remember next week maybe.
On an aircraft large or small- such an incident can prove tragic. Nothing so serious in the clarinet world, no matter how important we may think it is.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2016-09-29 17:07)
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