 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Warren Herron
Date: 2001-06-22 07:53
Hello, This should be an easy one for you guys, but I'm stumped. How do you tell what key your clarinet plays in? I know there are several different standards, but what does it mean? I have a key chart for the B flat clarinet. I'm not sure what mine is, but when I play a "C" on the instrument it corresponds to a B flat on our piano (which is in tune). Is this normal? I've seen precious little info on this subject. Most sites just assume you know what you've got, but as I mentioned, I'm ignorant on this machine. It has a great sound, though... I've heard enough real players to recognize that much about it. Just don't get the notation discrepancy. All I could find out on a web search was that the clarinet is a "transpositional instrument." I assume that this means that music must be transposed to the instrument's key in order to play correctly? Very confused... Any comments appreciated... Thanks for the help ---- Warren
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Author: SALT
Date: 2001-06-22 08:15
The most commonly known and played instrument in school bands is the B flat clarinet. Your instrument is also one of these. I know this because of what you told us about playing a c on the instrument and that corresponding to the B flat on your piano. B flat clarinet is referring to which concert key you're in(what the C instruments are playing) when you are playing a C major scale. Thus when our director tells us to warm up on B flat concert the clarinet(and trumpet) section plays C.
In short, yes, you have a B flat clarinet.
I hope I made sense to you!
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Author: Bob Curtis
Date: 2001-06-22 13:41
Warren:
This goes back to the ancient days when it was common to have clarinets of different sizes to play different musical compositions. There were not as many keys on the early instruments as there are now and because of some of the more "difficult" key signagtures (5 sharps or more, 5 flats of more) it was easier to play some parts on a different clarinet in which the size was shorter or longer, hence the names we have now with B flat being the most common. You can find short clarinets in the key of E flat, normal size clarinets in A, B flat and C and lower sounding clarinets in E flat alto, B flat Bass, etc. The composer always compensated by writing the instrumental parts in the correct key signature and the piano parts in their correct key signatures. So, you don't have to worry usualy about your key signature on your written band parts -- they will be correct. However, you and the alto sax, for instance, can't read off the same music as the Sax is an E flat alto sax and therefore you must read a different starting note -- this is called transposing and it can be done easily with practice IF you know the starting note.
When your band instructor asks the band to play in a "concert key" scale, he is telling you the key signature which would appear for the piano (or flute or any bass cleff instrument as they are not transposing instruments - they read the music as it would appear for the piano). For you to get the correct starting note and scale you must think one whole tone HIGHER for the correct note to begin on because your instrument is one whole one LOWER -- Get it??. Example, B flat concert scale, one tone higher is C scale for your instrument -- E flat concert scale, your starting point is F, and so on. I know that this sounds confusing at first, but it will become easier as you gain experience and practice thinking about what you need to do to play the correct note for all the band to match up.
Good luck,
Bob Curtis
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2001-06-22 13:53
What SALT says is correct. I just wanted to add that, if by "key chart" you mean a fingering chart, the fingering chart pretty much applies to all clarinets, no matter what key they are in. The fingering chart shows you how to play a particular note in music that is written for your instrument. If your music shows, say, an A-flat, you just look for the same A-flat on the fingering chart and follow what is there. If, in the future, you start playing an E-flat clarinet, you will play off of music written for E-flat clarinet, but will use the same fingering chart.
(Some clarinets have a few extra keys, but that is not worth worrying about. And there are other keying systems available, but these instruments are rarely played in the U.S., so you don't need to be concerned about these either.)
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Author: William
Date: 2001-06-22 15:25
Basically, all instruments that read music in treble cleff, will "sound" their concert pitch "name" when playing their note C. Exs: Eb Alto Sax will sound concert (piano) Eb when playing C, F Horn will sound concert F when playing C, Bb cornet will sound Bb when playing C, etc. Bass cleff instruments sound the notes they read even though they are not pitched in C. Exs: Trombone (in Bb) reads F and sounds F, BBb Sousaphone (tuba) reads Bb and sounds Bb. Bb Baritone reads Eb and sounds Eb. (However, baritones playing in treble cleff read and transpose exactly like trumpets) So, if your clarinet "sounds" piano (concert) Bb when playing C, then it is a "Bb" instrument. However, if it sounds B, then you are severely "sharp" and need a longer barrel--but thats another story.........! Good "Bb" Clarineting!!!!!!
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Author: Joseph Brenner, Jr.
Date: 2001-06-22 16:59
Warren, you're neither ignorant nor stupid--you're resourceful and got the right answer without realizing it. May we all be so ignorant or stupid! Best wishes, jbjr
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Author: Warren Herron
Date: 2001-06-23 05:09
Many thanks for all the wonderful replies! The last time I played with a band was many years ago in high school... Now I'm 38, so it's been a while... I've been messing around with instruments for some time, but mostly keyboards for the past 7 years, so I was really puzzled by the note discrepancy... When my keyboards are playing the wrong tone I know I have a major problem with SOMETHING... of course with synthesizers it can be one of many different variables, so trouble shooting is often interesting. Still, I've found that there are certain types of instruments which even the best samplers cannot really replace and the woodwinds and strings are high on this list. You just don't get all the subtlety with a few well placed samples... So, the interest in flutes and clarinet... Again, many thanks for the very friendly and informative responses... Have a great weekend! Warren
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Author: Rene
Date: 2001-06-23 11:55
The question has more to it than appears at first thought. So, why are we calling the clarinet Bb? Because by convention, the right hand empty tone is C, which sounds Bb, one tone lower, and we are usually refering to the C major scale (being the simplest one on the score), which sounds like Bb major then.
This is only a convention.
Thinking of a recorder, the basic tone is all tone holes covered (not the left hand ones only). For a clarinet, we could just as well write F as C, which gives an easy scale on the Boehm clarinet (but not so on other systems). The clarinet would then be called Eb clarinet, since its C (i.e. the note we call F now) would sound Eb.
The convention as it is, however, has the advantage that the clarinet scale fits well into the violin clef.
Enough of this confusing stuff.
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Author: Roger
Date: 2001-06-25 12:23
As an aside, if you can transpose eb sax parts to Bb clarinet you can read base clef as the alto sax is more or less bass clef. A treble cleff Eb instrument player can read base cleff by reading the base cleff as treble clef and adding 3 sharps.
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Author: Vince Chazi
Date: 2002-07-25 17:06
I still don't get it. Why was a pitch on any of these transposing
instruments, that sounded a concert "c", for example, called
anything else? I understand that different instruments were built
in different sizes and for different keys, but still, why, when
after the instrument was built and sounded, the concert pitch
was named for the pitch being sounded on the horn?
Consider this, if you take a beginning alto sax student and tell
him/her the correct pitch name (concert) for the pitch they make
when fingering a note, what is the problem with that?
It seems insignificant that a horn is "pitched" in a particular key.
Fine, that horns have range limitations or difficult fingerings,
but to call pitches by their incorrect names seems to me something
which should be corrected. The actual pitch, concert, is more
important than the limitations or historical conventions of any
instrument.
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Author: Vince Chazi
Date: 2002-07-26 05:38
correction: sentence 2: I understand that different instruments
were built in different sizes and therefore had different ranges,
but still, why then when after the horn was built wasn't the
correct pitch name (concert) assigned to the note being sounded?
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