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RE: Help Me!

Author: Fred McKenzie
Date: 1999-08-05 02:35

Jeff wrote:
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I have been given a clarinet that is very sharp. I can pull out as far as possible at both the barrel and bell and still be sharp. I have now resorted to pulling out at the mouthpiece, and I know that is not good.

AND:
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I know that my clarinet is A=440 in pitch, if this changes anything.

Jeff-

Your first statement suggests that your second statement isn't really correct. You should expect a Bb Soprano Clarinet to be in tune when the barrel is only slightly pulled out, maybe less than 1/8 inch total.

A little more might be required if you happen to have an unusually short barrel or mouthpiece. Is it possible that your mouthpiece or barrel is actually from an different instrument?

One way to tell if your instrument is designed for A=440 Hz, is to use a tuner to compare throat tones with tones that use most of the keys. For example, tune your low G, and see how close your open G is to being in tune. If they are close, you would expect that a mouthpiece or barrel was just too short. If they are so far out of tune with each other that you can't compensate by "lipping", you would expect that the instrument was designed for some other pitch, such as A=445 or 456 Hz.

It is possible that some tones could be affected by pads being adjusted too high (or too low). If that were so, only the first open pad or two below the lowest closed pad would be likely candidates for re-adjustment. In other words, pad height adjustments only affect a few "nearby" notes.

Fred
<A HREF="http://www.dreamnetstudios.com/music/mmb/index.htm">MMB</A>

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Help Me! new

Jeff

1999-08-04 02:18