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Clarinet in A (barrel question)

Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2018-02-12 03:16

What is the "average" length of an A Clarinet's barrel? (I can appreciate that there might not be an answer to this.)

My problem is this: I'm restoring an old (probably early 20th century) hard rubber simple system clarinet which I thought was a Bb clarinet. However, it is missing it's original barrel. All of the spare barrels I own are roughly 65-66.5mm in length, and when I place any of them on this particular clarinet...and if I pull out a whopping 2.5-3mm, the clarinet plays a concert [A4]

when I finger [C5]

. It isn't even close to being in tune with any pitch if I leave the barrel all the way in, or pull it out less than 2.5-3mm. However, at 2.5-3mm pulled out, the instrument stays in tune between [C4]

and

, but goes sharp below [C4]

or above

I'm trying to figure out if the barrel is the problem, or if, perhaps the clarinet's bore has misshapen over the years to create an anomaly. Could a Bb instrument be this far out of wack without any obvious visual clues, or is this an obvious A clarinet which needs a longer barrel?

(I fully admit my ignorance in this area...I've only ever played Bb/Eb instruments, but I'm used to these old simple system clarinets going FLAT when the longer B/C fingerings are used - not sharp, and figure I must be missing something that will be obvious to the rest of you.)

Any help, education, or information you might offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Fuzzy

PS: for those interested...the clarinet has absolutely no markings of any kind. No logos. No scratches. No serial numbers...nothing. The clarinet is brown as brown can be (not olive...definite brown). Beautiful keywork which matches an old 1893 Conn I own, so resolving this issue would help me further figure out just exactly what I have.

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