 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: BassetHorn
Date: 2005-09-03 06:13
Just how low a note can the clarinet be built to play?
You see low C extension, even low B, being built onto A/Bb/C soprano clarinets, basset horns, and bass clarinets all the time by small and large manufacturers. So what is next? Low A? Low G? Say if we just want to push the boundary and not bound by requirement of existing literature.
Just for the sake of it, is it physically possible to continue building longer lower joints and additional keys to hit those ever lower notes? Is there a limit to how low a clarinet can be made to play? Looking at a low Eb and low C bass clarinet side by side, it looks like all that is need is a longer lower joint with properly placed vent holes and keys. It certainly seems feasible to make a bass clarinet to low A or G (sure you might need to stand up to play, and the diameter of the bore will probably widen eventually)
Just curious.... Please correct me for my ignorance, I am not a scientific guy in any way.
Willy
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2005-09-03 10:42
I experimented with several pieces of equal lengths of pipe lagging when I was about 14, the bore diameter was 15mm so a standard Bb mouthpiece worked well, and obviously adding another length of lagging dropped the pitch by an octave, then following the 1,2,4,8,16 sequence to drop further octave though I only had 8 pieces, and the note was so low you could count the cycles, and wondered if a contra or sub contra could be built on this principle (and narrow bore), but not out of pipe lagging.
And obviously there was no expansion in the tube - larger clarinets from alto clarinets downwards have parallel bores except for the bell.
Another one was to fit a soprano sax mouthpiece on various brass instruments, (trumpet, trombone and tuba) to see what their pedal notes really were.
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Author: donald
Date: 2005-09-03 11:21
one problem is that the longer the tube is (given a "relatively cylindrical" bore) the greater the difference in resistance is from "short tube" to "long tube" notes
players of the Basset clarinet mention this every so often- the reed that makes the low C play well doesn't produce a very good high C etc (though, of course, this will depend on the instrument/player etc, but you get the idea)
sooooo
apart from the issue of not having enough fingers to go messing with too many extra keys, there is the resistance issue......
donald
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2005-09-03 12:11
I've never seen a basset clarinet up close, and this has me wondering what its bore is like.
The lower joint of a standard soprano clarinet, at least of the Boehm persuasion, has a bore that expands quite rapidly once it reaches the last two or three toneholes.
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What does a basset clarinet do? Presumably it takes the same bell as a standard soprano. Does the expansion start lower:
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or does it start in the same place and expand more slowly:
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or does it expand in the same place and then become cylindrical again:
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2005-09-03 12:27
The Selmer A basset clarinet bore has the expansion below the F#/C# tonehole as a standard A clarinet, then another expansion below the E/B tonehole (the one covered by the low Eb key - I'm naming the toneholes by the note that issues from them here, not by the key name), another around the D tonehole and a further expansion right at the bottom of the joint to match the bell throat - the Selmer basset bells are huge in comparison to a standard clarinet bell, no lower bell ring and have a floor peg attachment on them.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2005-09-03 13:08
A big problem is the number of keys required to operate the extra notes --- one tends to rapidly run out of fingers (as most of us are only equipped with ten........)
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2005-09-03 13:30
Those of you with only ten digits might care to reflect that bassoonists manage two more bass notes than even a low-C bass; their six-finger note is G, as on a clarinet, but their lowest note is Bb. (Even A on a few instruments.) Of course, they have the advantage of being able to use both thumbs. This makes me wonder whether an extended clarinet might be able to use both thumbs for the low notes, if equipped with a plateau for the thumb hole and a mechanism to keep the plateau closed when the lowest notes are being played. Perhaps this is easier to imagine on a paperclip contra-alto or contrabass than on a straight instrument.
On another tack, has anyone tried to extend the sax downwards in a similar way? It has a smaller range than the clarinet, and little for the thumbs to do. Why not a "basset sax"?
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2005-09-03 13:36
A baritone sax to low F (sounding low Ab - the same as a bass sax's lowest note) would be good, I could have done with one last week as there was no bass trombone to do the solo in the Nelson Riddle(ish) arrangement of 'I've Got You Under My Skin'.
And that was out near Burnham way (for me), Chalfont St. Giles to be precise - I recognised the village straight away from the 'Hammer House of Horror' series!
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2005-09-03 13:42)
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2005-09-03 17:17
Professor Peacham,
One of my prototype low-C bass clarinet conversions (thankfully purchased by a friend who, unaccountably, doesn't hate me for it) had the three extra notes operated by the LEFT thumb (on the upper joint just below the regular thumb spatula), and the problem with this arrangement was the very long rods going down to the bottom of the instrument. I haven't looked that hard at a bassoon lately, but I suspect most or all of those thumb keys operate pads that are relatively "local" to the thumbs in question.
In theory I believe you're correct, but the entire bass clarinet fingering and mechanism design would have to be redone to make useful use of both thumbs --- probably in conjunction with a "paperclip" (as opposed to linear" configuration of the body itself. I'd love to try to do all these things, if anyone cares to fund me for about six months..........
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2005-09-03 17:48
Pipe lagging?
It's high density foam tubing used to insulate domestic hot water pipes.
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Author: elmo lewis
Date: 2005-09-04 16:21
On the Steven Fox basset cl. extension the bore is smaller than that of the clarinet, significantly smaller than the beginning of the bell.
In Donald Martino's piece B,A,B,B,IT,T the clarinet is extended with cardboard tubes that lower the pitch to concert Bb below the bass clef. The sound is muffled and fuzzy, however.
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Author: D
Date: 2005-09-04 19:50
I've played a contrabass recorder in the past, (the thumb hole was bigger than my thumb!) and I would have to say that beyond a certain point it becomes point'less' as you can't hear the notes, just feel the vibration in the floor - so you might as well just play the rhythm on the note below the lowest you can hear. I have heard tell (from friends who went to a recorder festival) of a chap who made a crude subcontrabass recorder from a bit of telegraph pole or something. You couldn't hear any but the top notes. I would think the same would hold true for the clarinet, below a certain level we can't hear it, just feel it rumble.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2005-09-04 19:58
It's the same with most contrabass instruments really, you need someone else playing an octave higher to make the note recognisable as a note.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2005-09-05 00:57
Although..........I recently got a recording made and sold by a Washington State saxophonist named Jay Easton --- the recording is aptly named "So Low" and features the really big saxes, baritone through SUB-contrabass. The subcontrabass is not exactly a saxophone, it's actually a BBb subcontrabass Eppelsheim Tubax, which is made in Munich and is basically a narrow-bore saxophone-like instrument of relatively compact size. To get to the point, this instrument has a remarkably focused sound, so that even at pitches lower than the bottom of the string bass range, the pitches are very definite and sound wonderful -- in fact, the Tubax sounds more like a well-played string bass than a saxophone. For that matter, a well-played contrabass clarinet with a decent mouthpiece and a good reed (no simple thing, I can assure you!) will also produce clear and definite pitches, even at the very bottom of the range.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2005-09-05 10:46
I see the improved versions of the Eppelsheim Soprillos (the Bb piccolo sax) are availlable in the UK now, I wouldn't mind an EEb Tubax to be honest.
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Author: idahofats
Date: 2005-09-06 15:53
Based on David S. and Chris P.'s posts, I googled the instruments in question, and found interesting information on the following site (no intention of promoting LeBlanc, just liked the photos):
http://www.contrabass.com/pages/tubax.html
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Author: BassetHorn
Date: 2005-09-06 16:42
Benedikt Eppelsheim actually is not associated with G. Leblanc. I believe he is an independent maker who builts bass sax, Soprillo in Bb, and Tubax in 3 versions (Eb, C, Bb).
He is also associated with Guntram Wolfe in the building of Wolfe's Contraforte.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2005-09-06 17:06
The Wolf contrabassoons are something else being an all wooden affair - not sure how the automatic water key works on that, and interesting to see he also makes Vienna bodied oboes with conservatoire system keywork.
I never got to see the Contraforte when it was in the UK though.
And there's a newly designed Eppelsheim Bass Sax:
http://www.saxophones.co.uk/acatalog/xtremebass%2ehtml
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2005-09-06 17:16)
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