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See Sharp

Author: ThatPerfectReed
Date: 2014-01-20 03:50

Don't you just hate those members that pop their head in every once and a while and ask questions like "now is it the thin or thick part of the reed I put near the tip of the mouthpiece," without having at least tried to reseach this on the board first?

Yeah, sigh. I did at least try--and not start this post with some corny joke about C# the programing language.

OK, that said, let's talk about my friend, or should I say my enemy [C#4]

.

If you're anything like me, you just don't get the "satisfaction" playing this note as you might a [D#5]

has...well...."meat to it" if you know what I mean. While [C#4]

's best claim to fame is "well, at least I'm not" [Bb4]

.... hardly bragging in the clarinet world.

So--that said, why can [C#4]

get so "breathy?" At least with [Bb4]

there's fingerings to support improving long tones on the version played with the left pointer and thumb (the later on the octive key). At least there's the left pointer and the right point on a side key fingering, which sounds pretty good.

[C#4]

you give me so little choice! There's just one fingering. At least reveal to me why you can sound breathy. Is it a 1950's R13 thing?

Thanks everyone.

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Re: See Sharp

Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2014-01-19 23:49

Basically the tonehole is in the wrong place - it's too high up the instrument and made too small to compensate for this.
On a few clarinets e.g. full boehm models and models with single piece bodies like Rossi's the tone hole is correctly proportioned and in the correct place and so produces a C# that properly matches the adjacent notes.

Makers do this to save cost of putting the tonehole through the tenon area where it belongs.
On some makes/models the makers seem to get a better compromise of pitch and tone than others with there incorrect positioning.

You just have to learn how to voice this note to get best possible result.

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Re: See Sharp

Author: kdk
Date: 2014-01-20 05:22

If you're lucky, the note is both fuzzy and flat. If that's the case, a little undercutting can free it up some and raise the pitch. Just keep in mind that the twelfth will mirror the change, which can result in a wild, sharp [Ab5]

if you go too far.

Karl

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Re: See Sharp

Author: muppie
Date: 2014-01-20 02:46

On my clarinet (E12F), low C# is not breathy at all. It sounds as nice as any other lower register notes.

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