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Re: Mountain bike

Author: Liquorice
Date: 2020-03-05 11:05

Dear Tony,
Thanks for sharing that idea for people who like to rest the bell of their instrument on their knee.

At this point in time, I believe that it is better not to rest the clarinet on the knee, for reasons which I will go into below. Of course, I'm willing to be proved wrong, so please tell me if you disagree with anything I write.

My height is 1.73m. Nowadays that is probably slightly below average for a man. If I sit upright on a chair, the distance from my mouth to my hips is 66cm. With a modern B-flat clarinet the distance from the exit point of mouthpiece to the tip of the bell is 64cm. (I just measured these now out of interest). So if I am sitting upright and my head is looking forward, my clarinet bell can not make contact with my leg, even if I hold the clarinet in the most vertical position possible. The only ways I can think of the get the bell to rest on my knee would be to:

1. Lean forward
2. Tilt my head downwards
3. Curve my upper torso forwards

1. feels quite uncomfortable and directs my vision downwards somewhat. Given that I often need to look up at conductors, this leaning forward would probably eventually cause me to tilt my head backwards and shorten the neck. This would have a negative effect on my sound. 3. would also have a negative impact on my sound. I think 2. would also, but I need to test that to be sure.

I may use a combination of 2. and 3. if I need to produce a particularly low pitched long B natural, using my knee to somewhat cover the bell. But other than that, I can't see that resting the clarinet on my knee is a particularly good strategy for playing?

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