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Re: Crusell fingering issue

Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2010-11-06 14:00

"A little Nose Oil makes it easy to slide your right little finger from Eb to C."

True but IMO it should only be used in cases of necessity because it can also lead to unwanted slides. The passage in the Crusell is slow enough that it isn't necessary to slide at all.

"My original teacher called the xxo xxo fingering 'emergency only.'"

On most clarinets, with the exceptions (that immediately come to mind) of Bb4, Eb6 and G#6 and perhaps occasionally B4 and C5, the "standard" fingerings give the best intonation and most useful timbre. That's why they are the standard fingerings. (Note that many clarinetists would argue that the fingering usually identified as "standard" for Eb6 really shouldn't be.) In that sense (other than where the above exceptions are involved), one can make a case that any alternate fingering is "emergency only."

How stuffy or out-of-tune the note resulting from an alternate fingering will be can vary from clarinet to clarinet and some alternate fingerings generally give better notes than others (e.g., on my R13

T xoo oxo

gives a slightly "better" Eb4 than

T xoo xoo.

Rather than say a fingering is for "emergency only," I think it makes more sense to say that, on a particular clarinet, a particular fingering may only be useful in very rapid passages where the note goes by so fast its timbre and faulty intonation won't be apparent or in special contexts where the resulting note's "flaw" is desired.

Ab = TR xxo xxo

is a good example of this. Norman observes that the fingering does not work very well on his R13 and S1 but works quite well on his LLs. The logical conclusion would be that he might use the fingering differently depending on which clarinet he is playing. On my front line R13 Bb, the fingering produces a note that is very slightly stuffy but also (according to my tuner) very slightly better in tune. So, in the passage in question, I have to make a decision. I play the passage using the "C shift" and standard Ab fingering. Someone else (Peter C, for instance) might prefer the alternate fingering solution.

Best regards,
jnk

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Crusell fingering issue new

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2010-11-05 15:10