Author: Tom Henson
Date: 2008-05-24 05:20
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Hello all,
I do not have a bore gauge, so I have not measured the bore of the mouthpieces against the bore of the barrels. My test only were to see what the differences were between the various mouthpieces I own and I was surprised to see such a big difference. The results were valid in as much as I did test with a properly calibrated electronic tuner.
Another thing that must be taken into account is if the bore is the older design or the newer one. This will also affect the results from mouthpiece to mouthpiece. I do have some idea about the older bore as I have played on a set and my Leitner & Krauss clarinets are very similar to the bore as it existed around 1990 when Herr Leitner left Wurlitzer to start his own company. One improvement that L&K made to the upper bore is the tenon is now on the barrel and not the top of the upper body. This results in a barrel with a longer bore by as much as an inch. I was told this allows them to do more things in the barrel design regarding not only the tuning, but the sound character as well. I can only say that it works quite well, but you would not be able to use any aftermarket barrels on them unless they were custom made. I will attach a picture so you all can see what I am talking about.
I have some advice to give all of you which I have learned the hard way, and with the help of a close friend who knew a great deal about Wurlitzer clarinets. His name was Gordon Bobbett and he was the early teacher of Charles Stier. He recently passed away from kidney cancer, but he and I spent many hours talking shop about Wurlitzer clarinets. He had more Wurlitzer clarinets than anyone else in the US and I got to play on all of them.
My advice to you all is before you come to any conclusion and decision about the tuning on your Wurlitzer clarinets is that you much first learn the proper way to play on them. Because all of us came to the Wurlitzer system from playing on French clarinets we are at a big disadvantage. You must remember that the Reform Boehm clarinets have more in common with the German system than the French and you must approach playing them from that perspective. How many of you started out playing clarinet on a German system?
First, we have no teacher who plays on these clarinets and who already has the knowledge and wisdom gained from their experience. Second, Wurlitzer does not give us any information about what makes their clarinets special or different from anyone else’s. They consider all of the technical design of their instruments to be closely guarded trade secrets. What I know and learned, I learned on my own and from my friend.
Second, I strongly recommend that you do NOT go and modify these instruments unless you first learn how to properly play them. Once you have learned how to play on them, then you will be in a position to know what type of problems they may have. Until then, the only comparison that you can make is in regard to a French system clarinet and they are like night and day. You can't simply pick up a Reform Boehm clarinet and play it like a Buffet. Yes, you will make lovely sounds, but you will most likely be horribly out of tune.
A Wurlitzer clarinet is designed like no other clarinet in the world, and all of the other Reform Boehm clarinets that are made today are nothing but copies of the original Fritz Wurlitzer design. Herbert Wurlitzer, Fritz' son improved the design while he was alive, but he died about 1989. Ulrich, Herbert's son, has taken over the design of the clarinets now and is probably responsible for the change in the bore design starting around 2004-2005. Ulrich is also a professional clarinetist and his skill both as a player and a maker is the real secret behind the success of Wurlitzer today.
How many of you knew that the Wurlitzer bore design uses a double venting system? Are you aware that each note is vented and tuned to the sub-tone below it? This is what makes the sound of their clarinets so unique and why they have so much resonance. This also gives the clarion notes their bell like quality, almost like you are striking a bell when you sound the notes up high.
This is part of the reason that the tuning is very difficult to do well on these instruments. On the Ohler system, they get around this with all the many extra tuning holes next to the main tone hole. However, the Reform Boehm clarinet does not have all of these extra tuning holes. The only extra holes are on the side of the bottom joint and the second hole for the low F. If you have the low E/F improvement like I do, you also have a tuning hole just below the bottom of the lower joint and a large tone hole on the bell itself.
So this is part of the genius of this design, but like many things German, is very, very complex in design and execution. When done well it is outstanding, and when done poorly it is simply bad.
Wurlitzer clarinets also do funny things to electronic tuners sometimes. Because of this double venting and the extra partials that make up each note, the tuners can sometimes not get a lock on the main tone in order to decide what partial is the predominant one. You will see this when the needle goes all over the place trying to decide what note you are playing. Back away from the tuner and it will get a lock.
The Wurlitzer bore design is best for playing in large concert halls. What may sound out of tune up close may not sound so out of tune farther away as the sound travels. The sound of these clarinets was optimized for this type of environment and the partials were very carefully tuned for this. I know some of you may disagree on this point, but it all started with Fritz Wurlitzer back in the 60's. The original Wurlitzer clarinets were large bore clarinets and produced a very powerful and loud sound. As the Berlin orchestra's taste changed, some complained that they were too loud. So Fritz went back to the drawing board and completely redesigned the bore of their German system clarinets in an attempt to accommodate this change in taste. This resulted in a narrow or smaller bore clarinet. However, Fritz, being an acoustical genius, understood that volume alone does not make a clarinet heard above the orchestra. He set about to improve the resonance that the clarinet produced to make up for the smaller sound. It was his thinking that more resonance would allow the sound to carry farther in a concert hall. Double venting was developed and became the standard. The new Wurlitzer clarinets went on to set THE standard for sound and still do today, although other makers are getting very close to matching it, mainly from people who used to work for Wurlitzer like Herr Leitner.
Herbert Wurlitzer then applied this new resonance concept to the Reform Boehm clarinets and also made their bore narrower at the same time. Thus, the Wurlitzer sound was carried over.
Now, it is very important to pick the right mouthpiece for your particular clarinet to get the best tuning baseline that you can. However, if you don't know how to properly play on a German mouthpiece, you will never pick the right one. I suggest that you completely throw out the window everything you ever learned about embouchure on a French clarinet.
Also, do NOT use a French mouthpiece on the Wurlitzer clarinets unless you want to have a very expensive sounding Buffet.
On a French mouthpiece, you have a wider tip opening and a longer and wider reed. Typically, you take in as little mouthpiece as you can, but certainly not a lot. This is because of the mouthpiece facing design and how the French reed vibrates against this facing. Because a French mouthpiece and reed will allow a great deal of vibration, you have to minimize this or control it at some point or you will not be able to control the sound, much less the articulation as you slap tongue against the reed on the wide tip.
Playing on a German mouthpiece is completely the opposite. Because the design of the reed is made to vibrate fully against a closer facing, and one that is shorter, you must take in much more mouthpiece. If you don't believe me, go to YouTube and watch as many videos as you can of Sabine Meyer, Wenzel Fuchs, Karl Heinz-Steffens, and others who play on a German system clarinet. Note that they take in a great deal of mouthpiece and they typically do NOT use the flat chin of steel like we were taught on the French mouthpiece. Why, because their tuning will be all over the place and they will not be able to control the sound on the closer tip and harder reed.
When you take in this much mouthpiece, it will feel very strange and everything you were taught goes out the window. But, if you are doing it correctly, you will notice that your airflow is now closer to the back of your throat. As you learn to control the airflow and how this must interact with the back of the throat, you will suddenly discover that your tuning is much better than before. Especially when playing up high in the clarion because you will be using a looser, deeper embouchure.
Now that you are beginning to understand how to play on a German mouthpiece and reed, you must now learn to let go.
On a French clarinet, you are making constant, small and invisible changes in your embouchure and throat to compensate for the tuning characteristics of a French bore design. Jonathan Cohler posted on the Klarinet list a while back that he teaches his students that EACH note must be voiced individually in order to master playing on a French clarinet. This is ridiculous and unheard of in Germany.
What you do not realize is that when you pick up your Wurlitzer clarinet you are also doing the same thing. STOP!!!!! This will completely throw off the tuning.
Nodal Locking. What is nodal locking? Nodal locking is an acoustical term used to describe the way each note interacts with the note next to it. How precisely one note locks will determine the interval relationship between the note next to it and if there is any break in sound between it.
Acoustical lesson 101. French system vs. German system. A French bore is designed with a lot of flexibility in the nodal locking. This is a good thing because it allows you to play that wonderful glissando in Rhapsody in Blue. The French mouthpiece and reed is also designed to work with this flexibility. When playing on a French clarinet one must push between the notes to cover the resulting bend where the note you started on does not have a clear break in the transition to the next note. This is what allows you to bend notes so easily on a French bore. So this very impreciseness or lack of precise nodal locking is what make a French clarinet, well French.
Now comes the German bore design. If you want to hear a good example of precise nodal locking, go play a scale on a piano. There is no bending moment between the notes, is there? There is nothing but a precise ending of the first note, a clean break, and then the next new note at a different internal. This is nodal locking at its best.
This is how the bore of a German clarinet is designed and how the original clarinets were way back when they were first invented. Why is this important? Because you have to blow on a German clarinet differently. Your air flow must be constant with NO changes like you make when playing on a French system.
My friend said there is no secret to playing on a Wurlitzer clarinet, just blow, blow, blow, and then blow some more. Just a constant, steady stream of air.
But what about the tuning of each note? Won't I need to make all of those small, invisible changes like I did before. NO! To put it simply, just blow the damn thing and let the clarinet play itself. The nodal locking will take over and result in the most even scale you have ever heard, but with an incredible amount of resonance.
Now go back to YouTube or put on a CD of the Stamitz clarinet concertos played by Sabine Meyer. Nodal locking is most apparent on fast scales and arpeggios. Listen closely as you hear this nodal locking. The effect is that parts of her playing actually sound more like an organ than a clarinet. This is nodal locking at its best and is the reason you bought a Wurlitzer clarinet.
I can also tell you that Robert Marcellus discovered the wonders of nodal locking. He had Hans Moennig, a German (any coincidence?), keep working on his Buffet clarinets over and over because he was searching for that "German" sound. Gordon Bobbett, who studied under Marcellus for 6 years back in the 60's told me that Marcellus and he used to talk all the time about a German clarinet player (Heinrich Guesser-teacher of Karl Leister) that he had heard on a recording and became absolutely obsessed with his sound. This is what lead him to find Hans Moennig and then on to Kaspar. By the way, Marcellus played on German cut reeds called Moree. Do you begin to see a pattern here? If you listen to Marcellus play fast arpeggios, you will begin to hear this nodal locking that Hans Moenning put into his Buffet clarinets. This, combined with the Kaspar mouthpiece and Moree reeds were the secret to Marcellus' sound. Not Buffet. By the time Hans Moennig finished working on Marcellus' clarinets, they had more in common with a German system than a French, but it was a highly customized version requiring custom mouthpieces and reeds to make it all work.
The real genius of Hans Moennig is that he applied his knowledge about German bore instruments to the French system, and in the process improved them greatly. This is why when he died his knowledge died with him and no one has since been able to figure out what it was that he did to make the Buffet's play and sound the way they did. Keep in mind Hans was so good he would make each clarinet sound the way the owner wanted it to sound. There was no one mold or formula that he always used. That is why an original Moennig barrel will only work properly on the clarinet for which it was made. The same could be said about the Kaspar mouthpieces that were custom made for people like Marcellus.
Tom Henson
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