 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2017-06-19 19:50
This will sound like a strange question, but I'm curious about the numbering system when referring to notes. Instead of referring to notes as "chalumeau" Ab - they will give something like Ab3 or Ab4 or whatever.
While I've run across a couple of fingering charts indicating which numbers to use for which note ranges - it is still a relatively new concept for me...and I must always look up one of those fingering charts to figure out which note someone is referring to if they use the number system. (I've also found conflicting numbering systems between fingering charts.)
I'm curious how long the number system has been around and what the system of numbering is called. Is this a new standard being taught widely? Is this an old standard of which I simply somehow missed in my education? Is it regional?
I see the wisdom of such a numbering system, but since I'm not familiar with it, it makes conversation awkward for me. (At the same time, if folks are continually having to use both the numbered system and still explain whether the note is "clarion", etc., there's little benefit.)
Basically, I'm curious whether this is the "new way" being widely taught, or whether it is simply being adopted by those who find it more useful on a personal level.
Thanks,
Fuzzy
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Author: jthole
Date: 2017-06-19 19:58
AFAIK it comes from the piano keyboard. C4 is the C in the fourth full register on the piano.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-06-19 20:05
Attachment: c4.png (129k)
See attachment
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-06-19 20:36
jthole wrote:
> AFAIK it comes from the piano keyboard. C4 is the C in the
> fourth full register on the piano.
This is almost certainly the explanation. What has always confused me is that the numbering doesn't start with A.
I suppose that's because in standard solfeggio the scale goes from "do" or in France "ut" through "ti" or "si" and those names correspond to our C through B. So, then, why did whoever started using letters in place of the sol-fa names place the first letter, A, two notes below "do?" Why didn't the letter-name version just call "do" A? As far as I can see, the only differences would have been that the standard piano keyboard would have to have started with F-F#-G instead of at the beginning of the alphabet and the half steps in the major scale would have fallen between G-A and C-D. If starting the keyboard layout on F caused someone a bad enough headache, they might have just left the first three keys off and started the keyboard on "do - A".
Not an earthshaking issue, but one I've wondered about when I had nothing else to think about.
Karl
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-06-19 20:57
People that use the tonic Sol-Fa system (eg. some singers that can't read music) can use any note as Do, but as C Major is the basic scale involving no accidentals, it's the natural choice.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2017-06-19 20:59)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-06-19 21:03
And if you want strange 8ve systems, then try ordering harp strings when the 8ves start at the top being from E down to F (instead of B down to C) from 0 8ve to 7th 8ve as you descend.
The highest note on a concert grand harp being "0 8ve G".
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2017-06-19 21:06)
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-06-20 00:24
Chris P wrote:
> People that use the tonic Sol-Fa system (eg. some singers that
> can't read music) can use any note as Do,
Well, but here we go into the whole fixed vs moveable do issue, which is a rabbit hole fuzzy may not have wanted to go down into. Much of the historical writing about music that I read in European sources refers to notes by sol-fa names with "C" being the "fixed" location of "do." Curtis Institute here in Philadelphia teaches its students to sight-sing using "fixed do" syllables (do=C) and many of the conductors I play for sing passages they want to demonstrate with fixed do syllables. So the sol-fa syllables aren't the domain of the musically illiterate. Maybe I misunderstood what you were trying to say.
The moveable do is the darling of Kodaly teachers and, maybe, other pedagogical approaches as well. And my college sight-singing teachers used it as way to analyze the harmonic function of the notes in tonal music.
> but as C Major is the
> basic scale involving no accidentals, it's the natural choice.
>
Right, but then why does the piano keyboard begin three half-steps below the C Major scale? I think it's a curious thing that the keyboard doesn't start with the first note of the natural (white key) major scale, which was called do long before it was called C. If what we call C had been the first note on the keyboard, we probably would call it A and go up alphabetically from there.
I'm curious, as a tangent, about whether contemporary European musicians (musically literate ones) use letter names or sol-fa names to identify the notes of a scale. Sorry, fuzzy, if I seem to have hijacked your thread
Karl
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-06-20 00:47
Highland bagpipe chanters start their scale on A (x|xxx|xxx|o) and go to the A an 8ve above (thumb off) and the G natural below (x|xxx|xxx|x) so it's a major scale with a flattened 7th making it Mixolydian mode. I can only assume that was done to keep things simple for anyone who knows their ABC. Although their written/fingered A is so sharp (479-480Hz) it's a High Pitch Bb in orchestral terms (calibrated to 452-453Hz).
Just to add to the confusion, Yamaha call Middle C 'C3' on their electronic keyboards.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2017-06-20 01:11
This board nicely depicts C4 on every discussion page, to the right of the title of the board. I like using that numbering reference, as once you become familiar with it it is less confusing than descriptive terms.
For example, if clarion C is C5, then what is C6? If C6 is altissimo, then what is C7? etc. What's "high C" or "super-high C"? etc.
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2017-06-20 03:17
Thanks for the clarification...seems obvious...but when did such notation begin?
In my region, we weren't taught piano, nor expected to know anything about piano. Thus, we were taught which clarinet range the note/fingering fell in (chalemeau, throat, clarion, altissimo, etc.) So, for me...C4 is equivalent to saying something like..."7th position B" (a trombone reference). Using a different instrument to indicate which note I'm playing on my own instrument seems foreign to me (especially when it isn't quite literal, as the clarinet is a transposing instrument.)
Speaking accurately in pitch, wouldn't D1 on the clarinet be equal to C4 on the piano? (Meaning...if we were to apply the same logic to both clarinet and piano - then D1 would be the first instance (beginning at the bottom range of the instrument) of D on the clarinet, which would equal the pitch of C4 on the piano.)
For what it's worth - I understand the concept...but I'm still left wondering when the notation became commonly used. For instance - when did it first start showing up in clarinet fingering charts, etc.?
Thanks for the discussion,
Fuzzy
[EDIT] Karl - no worries about taking the thread in a new direction - you're addressing many related questions I would have liked to ask.
Post Edited (2017-06-20 03:22)
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Author: brycon
Date: 2017-06-20 04:14
Quote:
Right, but then why does the piano keyboard begin three half-steps below the C Major scale? I think it's a curious thing that the keyboard doesn't start with the first note of the natural (white key) major scale, which was called do long before it was called C. If what we call C had been the first note on the keyboard, we probably would call it A and go up alphabetically from there.
But earlier keyboards, of course, had a different range than the modern grand piano (harpsichords, if I remember correctly, begin on a low F).
Interestingly, the grand staff became more popular as a notational tool around the same time as the keyboard took off as an instrument. And in the late Renaissance, there was a shift in composition from part books to score format. The shift in thinking no doubt led to the change from polyphony to thorough-bass homophony; Claude le Jeune, for instance, was cited as working directly at the keyboard (perhaps consequently, his music was also criticized for bad counterpoint).
At any rate, what keyboard-oriented thinking, including the grand staff, does is orient the pitches around middle C; i.e. the treble staff is the notational mirror image of the bass. So I think composers and keyboardists conceive of the piano or harpsichord as moving outward in two directions from middle C, which makes sense with the divisions of parts into left and right hands. And additional pitches at the bottom and top of the instrument simply reflect a desire for more range and color, accommodated by advances in instrument making and technology.
But maybe more interestingly, harmony is notationally symmetrical around an A chord--because an A chord contains the pitch C as its middle pitch or third. So, for instance, if I write an A chord then turn my music upside down, it's still an A chord. And if I write a D chord or IV and flip my music, it becomes an E chord or V (and vice versa). This inherent feature of the grand staff allowed Schoenberg to write what he called "flip chorales"--four part chorales that made sense harmonically and syntactically rightside up and upside down.
Post Edited (2017-06-20 04:20)
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2017-06-20 04:33
FWIW, I find the whole thing very confusing. It is inherently ambiguous.
I'm never sure what note is being discussed. Why say "C4" if you mean "Bb4"? It seems to me that if you choose to refer back to the piano it would be best to be consistent and use concert pitch. Also, it's not obvious that the piano is being referred to. E3 might be clarion E. Then there's another problem... Which notes are "A4" and "G4"? On the piano G4 is above C4, but A4 is below. (Or is it?)
I think it's better to say first register, second register, third register, left hand, right hand, throat, pinky, long, open, or something else descriptive and unambiguous. With some combination of these terms you can't go wrong.
"High" or "low" can be confusing. "Altissimo" is ok, but it makes me think I'm playing saxophone. "Chalumeau" and "Clarion" are unambiguous, but some people don't know them.
"2nd register open C" can only be one note.
"Altissimo E" can only be one note.
"LH pinky C" can only be one note.
- Matthew Simington
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-06-20 05:13
brycon wrote:
> At any rate, what keyboard-oriented thinking, including the
> grand staff, does is orient the pitches around middle C; i.e.
> the treble staff is the notational mirror image of the bass. So
> I think composers and keyboardists conceive of the piano or
> harpsichord as moving outward in two directions from middle C,
> which makes sense with the divisions of parts into left and
> right hands.
I hadn't thought about working from the middle of the grand staff in both directions and this conjecture makes sense. But when the grand staff came into common use (promoted by Guido d'Arezzo), it would still, for want of a more historically precise term, have been "middle ut." The numbered octaves fuzzy asks about had to have come into use much later because they would have had to start numbering from the bottom of the piano keyboard. No one in the 11th century would have thought to call the middle of the grand staff, once it had come into use, "ut4."
> But maybe more interestingly, harmony is notationally
> symmetrical around an A chord--because an A chord contains the
> pitch C as its middle pitch or third.
Well, that would work if you called the note between the two staves A just as well. Then F-A-C, if you invert it, will still be F-A-C. The middle note could still be ut but its letter name might as well have been A as C.
> This inherent feature
> of the grand staff allowed Schoenberg to write what he called
> "flip chorales"--four part chorales that made sense
> harmonically and syntactically rightside up and upside down.
>
But that's a huge leap forward in time. Was the importance in modal harmony of the white key mode that starts on la - what we would call Aeolian mode or natural minor - great enough to have led to establishing a separate la-based system that became the modern letter-based A through G staff (but with C4 still in the middle of the grand staff)?
Of course, all of this is on the esoteric side, since we have solfeggio based on ut/do and literal names based on A-G and everyone has by this time gotten pretty well used to both.
Karl
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2017-06-20 06:09
Matt74 wrote:
"I'm never sure what note is being discussed. Why say "C4" if you mean "Bb4"?"
The designation refers only to a printed note. It may have originated long ago from keyboard usage, but now does not reference any instrument. A note printed one ledger line below a treble staff is C4. The tone sounded may differ depending on what instrument it's played on, say, Bb clarinet, Eb clarinet, or violin, but it's printed one ledger line below the staff, and designated C4.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_pitch_notation.
"On the piano G4 is above C4, but A4 is below. (Or is it?)"
No, the A below C4 is A3. The numbering does not start at the bottom of the keyboard.
"I think it's better to say first register, second register, third register, left hand, right hand, throat, pinky, long, open, or something else descriptive and unambiguous."
What are registers in this context? I might know what you mean, but where registers above 2 start and end is not clear to me.
""Altissimo E" can only be one note."
If someone used that term, I'd know what they meant (E6.) But being picayune, I'll mention that I use E7 daily, in warmups if nowhere else, *MY* descriptive term for that would be "altississimo E".
(Unfortunately, I occasionally experiment well above that, and can, if everything is propitious including the phase of the moon, get a chromatic scale to C8 before having to apply teeth to the reed. Using teeth, I've continued to E8. My private exploits in that area haven't merited their own terms yet, other than scatological ones.)
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Author: BGBG
Date: 2017-06-20 06:22
I have no real music education and i only refer to them that way because it seems to tell exactly what note i am referring to. Whether it is correct or preferred I have no idea. It just seemed simple to me. I do know what chalumeau and clarion and altissimo mean though, but I only use these terms to refer to the whole general range and never call it a chalumeau G. But then I never had a teacher to tell me to do so.
If someone does decide what is correct I would be happy to comply.
Post Edited (2017-06-21 01:32)
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-06-20 06:36
Matt74 wrote:
> I'm never sure what note is being discussed.
The reference note - middle C=C4 - is illustrated next to "The Clarinet BBoard" near the top of the bboard page. My questions notwithstanding - I was only curious - C5 is much shorter than any combination of terms as you suggest. It doesn't take any real effort to learn the nomenclature - middle C is C4 and the letters refer to written, not sounding ("concert") pitches.
You only need to read the questions here for a long enough time to realize how difficult verbal descriptions of notes can be to decipher. The next easiest alternative to numbered octaves is to describe where on the treble staff (for clarinet) the note is written. "C two leger lines above the staff" is much longer to type and read than "C6" but at least it avoids register designations (is that still 2nd register? Then you need to differentiate it from C5 - 3rd space from the bottom). I would have to scratch my head for a few seconds before I'd understand that this is the note (C6) that you describe as "2nd register open C." For some reason, "2nd register" and "open" don't play together well in my brain.
Karl
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Author: brycon
Date: 2017-06-20 07:06
Quote:
I hadn't thought about working from the middle of the grand staff in both directions and this conjecture makes sense. But when the grand staff came into common use (promoted by Guido d'Arezzo), it would still, for want of a more historically precise term, have been "middle ut." The numbered octaves fuzzy asks about had to have come into use much later because they would have had to start numbering from the bottom of the piano keyboard. No one in the 11th century would have thought to call the middle of the grand staff, once it had come into use, "ut4."
Well, I guess the implicit argument I was hoping to make was that our classification and notation systems are rather messy--concepts don't always progress through history in a logical manner. I assumed the numbering system C1, C2, etc. comes from the keyboard--likely a simplification of Helmholtz's system, which, if I remember correctly, is based on the middle C of the keyboard/grand staff.
Quote:
But that's a huge leap forward in time. Was the importance in modal harmony of the white key mode that starts on la - what we would call Aeolian mode or natural minor - great enough to have led to establishing a separate la-based system that became the modern letter-based A through G staff (but with C4 still in the middle of the grand staff)?
I'm not sure about the use of alphabet letters for pitches in the English-speaking world. I browsed Groves; it mentioned that the practice is rather old (predating the keyboard and grand staff) but not much else.
At any rate, it's important to keep in mind that solemnization, in addition to predating the keyboard, greatly predates tonal harmony. We live in a Cmajor-centric world and take it for granted. Bernstein, for instance, attempts to account for minor sounding "sad" by referencing the minor third's place in the overtone series. Minor, for him, must be an alteration to the more natural and fundamental major scale--just as Riemann more comically accounts for minor as the "undertone" series, the mirror image of the major overtone series.
But in terms of the era of vocal polyphony, there's no reason to assume that our middle C (262hz) and its corresponding scale enjoyed such a privileged status at that time: vocalist sang where things were comfortable, pitches weren't fixed frequencies (which became a huge problem in the era of travelling instrumentalists), the major/minor scale didn't yet exist, etc.
So with regard to why middle Do is C and not A, I'm not sure there's a single answer. There's a tension of pre-tonal traditions holding over into the tonal era, vocal practices melding with keyboard practices, and so forth. Again, it's messy.
Post Edited (2017-06-20 08:33)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-06-20 08:37
Attachment: range.jpg (43k)
See attachment - it's all there in black, white and red.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2017-06-20 08:46
Philip: Thanks for the link! It provided not only a name for the system (even if the name is a bit ambiguous)...it also provided an approximate date.
Thanks to everyone else too: I've really enjoyed reading through everyone's contributions.
My problem with "Scientific Pitch Notation" is that it isn't applied (in my view) very scientifically due to transposing instruments. Meaning: If I am in front of a class full of clarinetists - and say, "Play C4" - it will sound entirely different than the tone produced if I were standing in front of a group of trombones, Alto Saxophones, or Pianos, and asked everyone to play, "C4".
I agree that it creates a sort of shorthand when speaking amongst common tonality instruments (like on this board), and I'll try my best to assimilate for that reason.
Thanks again to everyone for the information - I'll look forward to any other postings provided in response too, but I feel my original questions have been answered.
Warmest Regards,
Fuzzy
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Author: brycon
Date: 2017-06-20 20:41
Quote:
My problem with "Scientific Pitch Notation" is that it isn't applied (in my view) very scientifically due to transposing instruments. Meaning: If I am in front of a class full of clarinetists - and say, "Play C4" - it will sound entirely different than the tone produced if I were standing in front of a group of trombones, Alto Saxophones, or Pianos, and asked everyone to play, "C4".
Yeah, but it's true of all pitch-naming systems--scientific, Helmholtz, letter names, solfege, etc. Unless you're calling pitches by their frequencies, you'll have to say to players/ensembles "sounding C" and/or "written C."
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-06-20 21:16
We had to perform a piece with a choir on Saturday just gone that involved using wine glasses tuned to specific notes to make cluster chords.
We were all told the notes we had to tune our glasses to.
Then someone asked if the notes we were given were the written pitches relative for Bb, Eb or F instruments.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-06-20 21:46
Chris P wrote:
> We had to perform a piece with a choir on Saturday just gone
> that involved using wine glasses tuned to specific notes to
> make cluster chords.
>
> We were all told the notes we had to tune our glasses to.
>
> Then someone asked if the notes we were given were the written
> pitches relative for Bb, Eb or F instruments.
>
Well, were they Bb, Eb, F or C wine glasses? ![[wink]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie3.gif)
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Author: Johan H Nilsson
Date: 2017-06-21 00:35
This is all about language economy. Want to spend the 10 initial posts of a thread trying to figure out what was the problem tone? Go ahead and use phrases like "My left hand Bb is flat!"
Imagine Arthur Benade's book doing this.
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2017-06-21 05:59
Using too many words can be bad. Using too few can also be bad.
- Matthew Simington
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Author: Dibbs
Date: 2017-06-21 16:47
fuzzy wrote:
>
> My problem with "Scientific Pitch Notation" is that it isn't
> applied (in my view) very scientifically due to transposing
> instruments. Meaning: If I am in front of a class full of
> clarinetists - and say, "Play C4" - it will sound entirely
> different than the tone produced if I were standing in front of
> a group of trombones, Alto Saxophones, or Pianos, and asked
> everyone to play, "C4".
>
What is C4 for bass clarinet? ![[C4]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/c4.gif) or ![[C5]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/c5.gif)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-06-21 17:35
Attachment: range.jpg (43k)
C4 is the written note - middle C on piano, low C on flutes, oboes and saxes and xxx|ooo on all clarinets.
See attachment of the complete four 8ve scale from low C to altissimo C which applies in whole and part to all clarinets.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-06-21 18:34
Dibbs wrote:
>
> What is C4 for bass clarinet? or
>
The numbering refers to the written notation, not the sounding pitch. And, again, it's based on "middle" C being the 4th octave of C on the piano keyboard. It's only a reference for discussion, not an absolute identification, so the instrument's written "middle C" is C4 regardless of instrument. If the bass clarinet were written in bass clef, as many orchestral bass clarinet parts are, C4 would be the note one leger line above the bass clef staff.
Karl
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Author: Johan H Nilsson
Date: 2017-06-21 21:56
Matt74,
"Using too many words can be bad. Using too few can also be bad."
Explain why "C4" needs to be longer.
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Author: MichaelW
Date: 2017-06-23 00:46
To make things still a bit more complicated: In German your c4 is c1 or c' (Eingestrichenes c), c5 would then be c" (Zweigestrichenes c). In Romanic countries the syllables from solmisation (ut,re...) are used instead. In French, if I understand it right, c5 would then be "contre-ut".
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Author: Johan H Nilsson
Date: 2017-06-29 20:46
Saw today:
"the thumb rest is annoyingly low on the instrument. It hurts your thumb! It is at the same level as the low B natural/ F#"
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=454290&t=454290
I suppose the tone in question is:
B3
Or using the Smileys/Notes link above: ![[B3]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/b3.gif)
Two characters instead of 21 and I still had to think quite some time what the 21 characters actually meant. The F# is probably the 2nd register F#, i.e. F#5 or ![[F#5]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/gb5.gif) .
The author is a newbie on the forum. The ones I admire the most have spent years here and still refuse to be rational.
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