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Re: Intonation Nightmare

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-01-26 18:00

Zacharywest158 wrote:

> The instrument plays well in tune, except for B3
> and C3, which are very, very flat. E2 and F2 are each a shade
> flat, but not nearly as much so as the twelfths above.

Check the graphic next to the page heading "The Clarinet BBoard" for the key to the octave numbers.

I'm going to assume you mean B4 and C5 (the long B and C fingerings) since you couple them with upper twelfths E and F (I'll assume E3 and F3).

The mouthpiece and barrel will have their greatest effect at the top of the clarinet - the throat notes. So, if you opt for a sharper mouthpiece you will bring the entire instrument up, the throat tones and upper section more than the lower section, of which those long fingerings are the last.

Low E3 and F3 are slightly flat on most Boehm clarinets. If their twelfths are in tune, all is well, or at least normal. If the upper twelfths are flatter than the low notes, my knee-jerk suspicion, without being able to hear or see how you play, is that either your register tube is partially blocked or your bell has gone out of spec. A bell can affect the pitch of the long fingerings without having much effect on the rest of the clarinet, but it would affect E and F as well as B and C. Just as Paul describes with mouthpieces (and barrels), increasing the internal volume of the bell will lower the pitch of the longest fingerings (E3-F3-B4-C5).

My suggestion would be to clean out the register tube. If that doesn't improve things, try adding a little tape at the top of the bell or some bluetac to slightly reduce the volume of air in the bell. You can try both of these with no cash outlay and the tape or bluetac are completely removable if they cause unwanted effects.

If neither of these helps, you can certainly try mouthpieces, but I'd still expect a bell to have more influence over this problem and a mouthpiece to change much more than you're trying to correct. There are nearly as many after-market bells available as mouthpieces, if you want a more permanent fix than bluetac or tape.

Karl

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Intonation Nightmare new

Zacharywest158

2015-01-26 07:27