 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Clarinetgirl06
Date: 2005-11-29 21:15
From thumb C, how low is it possible to bend your pitch down? So far I can get a thumb C down to a D# and I'm working towards a full octave. I've read in a previous post that Charles Neidich could bend a full octave and so could Opus II. Can we as clarinetists go beyond an octave?
On low E, is it possible to bend lower than an Eb? I can get the Eb, but is it possible to go beyond that?
I'm just curious, and I like bending pitch! Thanks for any help!
Any fun things to do with bending pitch?
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2005-11-29 21:17
Quote:
Any fun things to do with bending pitch? Throw off others trying to tune.
US Army Japan Band
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2005-11-29 21:20
Especially if they're playing the upper part and you're an octave, 6th or 3rd below them - lip UP your part so it makes them sound flat.
I like doing that to trumpet players.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2005-11-29 21:36
Carrie -
If you can get down a sixth, from second ledger line C to D#, you're doing very well. That's more than most people can do.
The largest interval I've heard down from low E is a half step to Eb, which I heard John Denman do at a jazz concert. He was using a large bore clarinet with an open mouthpiece. Tony Pay has written that he can do the same by making a "puffing on a cigar" embouchure and laying his tongue on the reed to slow down the vibration.
Keep up the good work.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Clarinetgirl06
Date: 2005-11-30 01:56
lol! I would easily do the whole tuning thing, but I sit right infront of my band director at school. She would hate me.
Any advice on how I can push on beyond my D# barrier?
My dream pitch bending fantasy would be to play the opening glissando of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue as 1 whole bent pitch from thumb C. I know that wouldn't make it a glissando anymore, but wouldn't that be amazing? I am 99.99% sure that it is impossible to do. We can dream though!
Thanks for all the help! Any more would be great!
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Author: mr. matt
Date: 2005-11-30 03:37
Holy crap, that would be insane. Even if it weren't a gliss, it would be incredible. I'm lucky if I can get a decent sounding gliss once in a while...me and glissandi do not get along in terms of playing them. When I write pieces, though, I love to put them in. =)
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2005-11-30 06:23
Can you record yourself doing the bend from C to Eb? I've never really tried bending much but if I remember I once bend C to A which I think is the most I can do.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2005-11-30 06:28
Wow, how soft is your reed? I can only make it down a major second (perhaps minor third) on a good day, though it *sounds* like the better part of an octave. (I was shocked at how little the bend actually was the first time I checked)
WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT:
For fun, bend a C down, but not all the way to a B (replace with C# and C in a band setting). This adds horrendous clashing beats any time anyone plays the tuning note. Hold it for a good long while some time, perhaps before rehearsal starts (if you do it too soon before rehearsal, people will be pissed and out of tune).
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: allencole
Date: 2005-11-30 06:28
Perhaps we need to clarify what kind of bend we are talking about. Who is getting help from their fingers, and who is simply bending down from thumb C with no addition of fingers?
Allen Cole
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2005-11-30 07:54
It definitely depends on your mouthpiece. Some are stable in pitch, others less so. But I wonder what the practical limits are? Is it possible to bend past the break, for example - long fingered notes are harder to bend (for me, anyway) - ? I think doing the Gershwin is asking a bit much - I mean, notes above the break are played on the third harmonic - I don't think you could gliss to the fundamental, so how would you play really low notes on the third harmonic without an extra 4 foot of pipe somewhere? I can bend a fair way (gonna have to find out just how far now, darn it), but that's asking a bit much, surely.
How would you describe the technique required to bend a note so far? I just remember picking up pitch-bending one day without any real conscious awareness, just far too much time spent fooling around with jazz and klezmer-style music, and trying to do that darn gliss from Rhapsody in Blue.
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Author: Tony Beck
Date: 2005-11-30 12:13
Over the weekend, I made my first attempt at refacing a mouthpiece. It was an old Vandoren B44 (Eb) that had a huge, almost unplayable tip opening. With a ~.85mm opening and a really long facing (~18mm) the clarion above F was very sensitive to embouchure. I could bend any note up to double ledger C all over the place. In fact, it was almost impossible to play consistently in tune above clarion D. With the facing shortened up to ~13mm tuning locked in nicely. Based on this experience, it seems that mouthpiece design has a lot to do with how far one can bend a pitch.
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Author: Gobboboy
Date: 2005-11-30 23:22
My Teacher and mentor, a lovely man called Micheal Farnham used to do this a as his 'party trick'!!
he could bend a bottom 'E' down to a C#!! - he used to lay his tounge flat on the reed, open the throat really wide (as if doing a huge yawn!) and then full of air, have your cheeks puffed out (to extend the cavity in your throat) I found it hillarious!
I can easily play a scale of Eb & D (starting on the upper octave and going down) having had many a laugh with Michael learning to do it!
of course there is no need for it at all, but it can be fun to try...makes my students laugh anyway!!
Gobboboy
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Author: Clarinetgirl06
Date: 2005-12-01 22:07
I'm using a Buffet R13, a Walter Grabner K11 mp, and Vandoren V12 size 3 1/2's. Not very soft, not ultra hard.
I don't have the recording abilities as of now, but I may be getting a mp3 player for my birthday which has recording abilities.
Gobboboy: I want to be your teacher's apprentice and learn how to go down to a C from low E. Wow, that would be so cool! Can you get your teacher to record it?
Yeah, from thumb C I'm not putting any fingers down whatsoever. And what I meant when I said to the barrier of going down an octave-once I get to a D#, anything after that kinda of just drops out into this fuzz. Although this used to happen to me when I could only bend down to a G, so maybe it just needs to click one day like it did for the D#. For originally learning to bend pitch, I had heard another girl do it and I wanted to know how you did it but she couldn't really explain. So I tried and tried and could only get a half step for like 2 months, then suddenly one day I was practicing and bent my pitch and I could get to a G consistently. It's rather weird, it just clicks! Should I just let it "click" down to an octave just some day down the future?
Thanks for the input!!!!
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Author: Tom Puwalski
Date: 2005-12-02 22:14
If you're bending alot of pitches, you're not playing klezmer anymore!
Tom Puwalski
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Author: sinkdraiN
Date: 2005-12-03 19:25
There's an old saxophone trick I use in the altissimo register where you bend notes almost a full octave. It translates easy to the clarinet. Bending the pitch has more to do with tongue position and airstream than merely dropping your jaw. It's the same position that is required to bend a pitch while whistling.
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Author: hinotehud ★2017
Date: 2005-12-04 02:22
Wow, that is pretty amazing! I've been bending tones for over 40 years but I can only go downward from C to Ab. I feel like I am closing off my throat as if I were choking myself. (What is actually happening could be something entirely different.) The throat and mouth cavity are definetly shaped to drastically change the standing sound wave. H. Voxman had some studies done with x-ray motion pictures showing tongue placement changes as the clarinet was played in defferent registers. (This was before anyone knew of the dangers x-rays posed.) I assume these studies are still in the University of Iowa's library. They confirmed that the higher you go, the flatter the tongue becomes in the back of your mouth. With the new scan machines available, it would be very enlightening to see what actually happens when you bend a tone.
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Author: Firebird
Date: 2005-12-04 14:15
For me, I can bend from 4th line D to the high C (typical Rhaspody in Blue trick), from low G to open G or from C above stave to the really high A. But comes with a knack though, I need to learn how to cross registers.
And somehow, the bending is easier on my older French clarinets; clarinets of the 20s and 30s era.
Chan
Post Edited (2005-12-04 14:20)
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2005-12-04 16:20
Firebird - I believe bendability depends on bore size - are the older clarinets different in this respect?
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Author: Clarinetgirl06
Date: 2005-12-04 22:30
Firebird: You can bend your pitch up? So all of your fingers are fingering a 4th line D and you can just bend up to a thumb C? Wow, that's craziness! It would be amazing to hear you if you could conquer the register changes!
Hinotehud: Those Voxman x-rays sound very interesting. I wonder if they could make an x-ray video of someone bending their pitch and glissing and all sorts of crazy things like tritones, grunting, etc.
sinkdraiN: Wow, I never thought about how bending feels like whistling! Cool! Maybe that'll help some people be able to bend!
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Author: Firebird
Date: 2005-12-05 12:35
It's the Rhaspody in Blue bending? When I bend I need to lift my fingers up too! I can't bend with my fingers down you know. Maybe you got the wrong idea.
One of my friends can bend from the lowest E over the register breaks all the way to the highest C.
As for downwards, I can bend about a minor 3rd without moving my fingers. I wonder how to get even lower.
Chan
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Author: FrankM
Date: 2005-12-05 12:46
I'm confused...are we talking about altering the pitch that far without changing fingers or are we talking about what I would call a gliss?
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Author: Clarinetgirl06
Date: 2005-12-05 20:28
I'm talking about not changing fingers. It's all mouth. I don't know if someone else is adding fingers or not and I'm even a little confused now!
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