 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Johnny Galaga
Date: 2019-09-20 03:33
I'm talking about keys like concert A Major, E Major, and D Major. The technique is really hard, especially if you have to play anything fast. I remember in high school how a lot of players would mess up and hit wrong notes in those kind of keys. It wasn't often that we had songs in keys like that, but when we did, there was always that initial shock of seeing like 5 or 6 sharps or flats in the key signature going, 'oh crap', that's gonna be hard to play.
Rock band style instruments don't seem to have the same issue. They can play or sing in C Major or C# Major and their technique isn't any more difficult either way. I wish it was like that for us. Like sometimes you hear guitar players talk about playing in E or A, and I'm like dang, that's hard. But they never seem to think it's a big deal. They have no idea what we go through.
I believe concert E Major is often used in rock/pop songs because a 4-string bass guitar has E as the lowest note on standard tuning. But I know everytime I hear a rock or pop song in one of those tough keys, I actually get a little stressed thinking about how hard that would be to play in.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2019-09-20 03:41
"E" and "A" are the easy keys on guitar. See if your guitar heroes are so cocky in "Bb!"
This is why most country songs are in "A" and "E."
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: Johnny Galaga
Date: 2019-09-20 03:44
I once heard Concert Bb is considered a hard key for singers to sing in for some reason. True or false?
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2019-09-20 05:25
I can't speak too much for vocalists, but judging from your typical hymn keys around the first two lines of the staff, "Bb" may be just too high or just too low.
...........Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2019-09-20 06:45
Johnny Galaga wrote:
> I once heard Concert Bb is considered a hard key for singers to
> sing in for some reason. True or false?
Depends on the singer. Voices have natural register breaks. A lot of vocal study involves learning to negotiate those breaks to produce a consistent sound even as the singer crosses from one to the other register (much like playing over the breaks on a clarinet). If the natural break in a singer's voice occurs in an awkward place in a scale, it can be enough to make a trained vocalist ask to move the key up or down a half step to place a critical interval either completely above or completely below the break. If I remember (from voice study that ended 50 years ago), many tenors and sopranos have a break between A and Bb, making the "si-do" leading tone interval awkward in Bb. A#-B (in B Major) would be much easier (both are above the break) and not out of range.
Also, singers seem to prefer "brighter" keys, and B is "brighter" than Bb.
Karl
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Author: Johnny Galaga
Date: 2019-09-21 02:27
I also notice that the harder keys are harder to get in tune. When you've got like 6 or 7 flats, you end up using more of the different side keys on the instrument and the intonation sounds off. In fact, I've always found it very hard to get exactly in tune with pop/rock songs if you try to play along. Why is that?
Like, guitars and bases, pianos, they have it easy with intonation. It's basically given to you for free. You just pluck the string or play the keyboard and you a nice full sound spot-on in tune with no effort. I wish we were like that. And the sound quality is nice and even from one note to the next. With our instrument, each note quality sounds a little different and it's hard to get a consistent sound on every note, especially in the harder keys. Like crossing the register break, for example. When you go from the throat tones to the clarion, the sound quality suddenly changes.
Some notes are more airy and quieter like middle-line Bb with the register key, and some notes are brighter and sound more solid like clarion F# (not the forked fingering). Rock-style instruments don't seem to have this problem. I find it aggravating trying to get matched up in-tune with pop songs.
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Author: Johnny Galaga
Date: 2019-09-21 02:30
In high school, we played a song called Marriage Of Figaro Overture which was really fast and technical. Our version was in Bb Major, but the original orchestra song is in Concert D. That would be 4 sharps for us. Yechhh! Could you imagine having to play all that fast technique in 4 sharps? That would be like hellishly hard to do. Are there players who can actually do that?
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2019-09-21 03:12
Hi Johnny. My assumption is that among classically trained clarinetists, essentially all good professionals and most music performance students become fluent in all keys. The practice of scales and related patterns in any key is part of their daily routine. Sight-reading in denser keys is no problem either. Keys mostly cease to differ in difficulty.
I'll further assume, with less knowledge, that good professionals in other music genres have similar levels of ability in this area.
For scale and pattern practice the most common recommendation is Baermann's scale book from his clarinet method. Jettel's similar book from his method is also excellent.
Fear no key; seek out the hard ones and play.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2019-09-21 07:37
Johnny Galaga wrote:
> In high school, we played a song called Marriage Of Figaro Overture
> which was really fast and technical. Our version was in Bb Major,
> but the original orchestra song is in Concert D.
> That would be 4 sharps for us. Yechhh!
> Could you imagine having to play all that fast technique in 4 sharps?
> That would be like hellishly hard to do.
> Are there players who can actually do that?
The orchestral part is played on the A clarinet which puts it in the clarinet key of F major.
...GBK
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2019-09-21 08:58
Well I feel a need to defend the honor of guitar players who actually CAN and DO play in tune. They have to tune there strings before a gig and often times (the real good ones) will tune several times more DURING the gig.
Pianos are a different story (speaking of actual acoustic pianos) in that the pianist is pretty much stuck with how the instrument has been tuned. Major concert pianists will have their own pianos brought to the gig and tuned on site just prior to the performance. Any lesser performance and your lucky to be using a decent piano that was tuned in the last month (and they actually should be tuned every month).
Electric pianos are "good to go" all the time, but they sound like crap (in my humble opinion).
................Paul Aviles
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2019-09-23 06:10
A lot of good points made. There are so many scales/arpeggios/exercise books out there to help us. And alternate fingerings to change the tone quality of certain notes (throat Bb, first space F#, low B, and others). It's a mental thing to a point as well. At times, pieces in harder keys may actually be easier due to using side keys. Some consider the Mozart Concerto hard because the keys are too easy, making even playing in technical sections actually more difficult. Perhaps that is why it is often on orchestral auditions. Pieces such as the Nielsen have such difficult passages that often you are through them smoothly before you get a chance to think (of course you've practiced them for like 28 years).
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Post Edited (2019-09-23 06:13)
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