 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2007-08-03 15:38
To the devil with all the fancy mechanisms, hyperbolic catenary barrel bores and bells, articulated thumb keys, balanced multiple speaker keys, articulated Bb-miners!
The technical innovation most needed in clarinet land is SPIT PROOFING!
At ClarinetFest, the 4th note blown (on a new Yamaha A that had never had a propensity for clogging up started gurgling. For the next 5-days and nights, most of the performers worried and fiddled, swabbed and blotted, fighting "condensation" in tone holes.
Cigarette papers, silk swabs, air jets universal band-aids, not solutions.
Only on stage French horn plumbing repairs can compare to the nagging little floods we contend with.
Certainly our inventive compatriots can get this problem under control. --Surfactant treatments, hydrophilic guides, hydrophobic tone hole rims, ...
Bob Phillips
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2007-08-03 15:49
Here here! All it would take is the logic to not put the toneholes UNDER the horn.
Is anyone from Buffet or Yamaha reading? Gravity exists- consider it!
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2007-08-03 15:57
OK ok...so not underneath the horn. We'll move the tone holes to the top of the clarinet, and our fingers will go where?
heeheehee
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: Ski
Date: 2007-08-03 16:49
I'd love to have a spit valve at the bottom of the lower curve of the neck of my bass clarinet; that's where it all accumulates for me.
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Author: bmcgar ★2017
Date: 2007-08-03 16:50
Interesting thing:
Rossis have the side C#/G# key moved "up," away from the bottom of the clarinet (the one-piece body makes that possible), so now the condensation concentrates around the throat A key tone hole when things get humid!
I'm sure there's some scientific explanation for that, but I prefer to attribute it to that band of persistent clarinet gremlins that come to visit every so often.
B.
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2007-08-03 17:31
The C#/G# tone hole is the major compromise of the two joint clarinet. I once was looking at a two joint Eb clarinet...until I slapped myself in the forehead!
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: aminor
Date: 2007-08-03 19:14
I never have a spit problem. I play tight-lipped and frigid and I'm very old so I'm all dried up.
See what you all have to look forward to. ![[rotate]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley25.gif)
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Author: Tony Beck
Date: 2007-08-03 19:16
In my growing arsenal of clarinets (bad case of GAS!) are a couple oldies with a wrap around register keys. They play very well, so I sometimes take one or the other to concerts. What a great idea that wrap around, no tube in the bore and still no water accumulates in the vent. That is, until you lay it in your lap keys down for 20 or 30 measures. OOPS! The humidity around here can be such a pain sometimes.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-08-03 19:22
Ski - "I'd love to have a spit valve at the bottom of the lower curve of the neck of my bass clarinet; that's where it all accumulates for me."
I've seen PHOTOS of Buffet basses with these, but I've never seen a single Buffet bass with one.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2007-08-03 19:29
Yes, good cl f[r]iends, blame it on the humility, and it on global warming !! I like the artic C#/G# horns which get away from that "lower-side" VP tone hole location, so have little problems of that kind. Others, yes, A[ge] R[elated] types. I really was hoping this thread might approach an "higher" ?ultimate?. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2007-08-03 19:51
Don, I mean this without venom of any kind...but I have the worst time reading your posts!
cl "f[r]iends" = clarinet fiends?
"blame it on the humility"...or humidity (am I missing the joke?)
"artic" not as in icebound but as in articulated I get.
"Others, yes, AR types?" (or ARgelated?)
How do you come up with this stuff??
James ![[huh]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie11.gif)
Gnothi Seauton
Post Edited (2007-08-03 19:51)
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2007-08-03 20:15
lessee, in order of problem with "condensation" for me:
C#/G#
Throat A
Eb/Bb trill
Throat G#
Fortunately (or not) the throat A gives me some warning before completely clogging up and making the A impossible. It starts to quit speaking clearly, but will still play.
The Eb/Bb trill can sometimes be put-off a bit by blowing too hard.
The Eb/Bb trill key can be replaced with the Bb/Eb sliver key --a use for the silly thing other than chromatic runs.
Bad holes are on the side and bottom and the top --all around.
And I had to hand a Rossi player a cigarette paper for a bubbling G# key --so that's not a solid solution, neither.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2007-08-03 20:43
TKS, J T - guess I just have a velly peculiar humorous "twist", possibly aggrevated by trying to increase my Scotch ancestry %age. {Now does this have a cl "association" , perhaps, GBK ! ?] Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-08-03 23:08
Highland pipe drones are all single reed - now that's an association you may not want!
A while back I was talking to our bassoon specialit about a bassoon that will play in tune for a (specific) player that can't - it will have camera-type apertures (like an iris) in all the toneholes that will widen to sharpen or narrow to flatten the out of tune notes - all this done electronically with small servo motors which are all computer controlled to respond to the varying pitch the player plays at, and adjusts according to the fingering and tuning of each note played.
Now a clarinet (or any other woodwind instrument) designed with this could remedy a player that has dreadful intonation. Only problem is that they will need to be wired up to a computer, and can only play on this instrument. And they won't learn to listen to their tuning as it'll all be done for them, so when they use a standard instrument they'll be all over the shop.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2007-08-04 09:59
> I've seen PHOTOS of Buffet basses with these, but
> I've never seen a single Buffet bass with one.
Just a couple of weeks ago I saw one of these. I'm thinking to put a water key on my bass too because it is easier than turning the instrument and have the water come out of the mouthpiece.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-08-04 10:19
I usually remove the end part of the crook at the tuning slide to empty the condensation out, but it makes a noise each time (due to the turned finish of the parts) so can only be done in between movements (while the audience clear their throats) or at the end of a piece before we all stand.
Though it's not a huge job to make and fit a water key - have the pillars hard soldered on a base plate which is soft soldered to the undersude of the crook, then drill a hole in the crook (I reckon between 6mm and 8mm so it drains easily) and solder a piece of tubing onto it like a drawn tonehole, levelled off so a cork pad can be seated, and then make a waterkey that takes a 9.5mm cork pad to cover it. Either spring it with a strong flat spring, or a trumpet wayrkey spring with two coils either side of the key arm.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2007-08-04 17:41
I was thinking maybe something like buying one of the already made ones from Allied where all that is necessary is to solder (or maybe glue like my register tube) the post and tube to the neck.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-08-04 19:15
How well are they made? I've seen some water keys that haven't got a pad cup - the cork is stuck on the round end rather than sitting within it. I have some Allied bits and a few of these stamped out from sheet metal water keys are with them.
If possible, can you post a link to these water keys for me?
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2007-08-05 05:17
I have no idea how well they are made. Allied don't have a website but there is a picture of some of their water keys in their catalogue (they have more models which they don't show a picture in the catalogue). If you want I can try to take a picture (I don't have a scanner) of the ones they show in their catalogue. They at least look like regular water keys with posts, key, etc.
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