Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2014-06-30 07:55
The short answer is to work with your private teacher after you start lessons to determine the appropriate make, length and material.
If you want to do some calculating on your own and you have or can get access to a chromatic tuner, you could try the following approach. Set the tuner to A= 440. Then, after warming up your clarinet thoroughly, tune open G, pulling out the barrel, if necessary. Play the note at a medium dynamic level, not too loud or unduly soft. Optional, try fingering "open" G as follows:
ooo oxx Eb
Once you have that note in tune, tune G one octave higher, pulling out the lower joint if necessary but not adjusting the barrel. (We'll hope this note isn't flat to begin with. If it is, let us know here.)
Now check the rest of the notes on your clarinet from bottom E to at least high C (two lines above the staff). If the notes that use the right hand consistently fall to one side of the tuner, try adjusting the amount you've pulled out the lower joint. If the notes that use only the left hand consistently fall to one side of the tuner, try adjusting the amount that you have pulled out the barrel.
When you are satisfied that your clarinet is as well in tune with the tuner as you can get it, measure the gap between the barrel and your upper joint. That will give you the maximum amount you can add to your barrel length. To be on the safe side, I would subtract 1.0 mm from the measured amount. In other words, if your gap is 3 mm and your current barrel is 64.5 mm, then a 66 or 66.5 mm barrel (if available) should be OK.
Since you're not in a hurry, I would recommend you go through this process several times and try different conditions of humidity and temperature.
Others may suggest different approaches or modifications to what I have suggested. Do what makes the most sense to you. Or try them all and see what results you get and how much they differ. Keep in mind that differences between makes of barrels and even within a particular make may cause some variation. Still, I think allowing a 1 mm margin of error will leave you OK.
Best regards,
jnk
P.S. When responding, you don't need to reproduce our entire post. That just wastes space.
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