 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: MoonPatrol
Date: 2016-03-24 00:16
I have been looking at some clarinet parts for famous composers and notice that one by Brahms is in the key of A and C.
I wonder if to play the part that is written in C if I would have to transpose on the fly, or if the publishing companies take care of it and produce a Bb part. The parts I have are not as such.
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Author: rmk54
Date: 2016-03-24 01:04
You should learn to transpose.
It's not rocket science!
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Author: Bennett ★2017
Date: 2016-03-24 01:21
Sometimes transposed parts are available, probably more often they aren't.
In response to rmk54, while transposition is not rocket science, it is certainly not something that is intuitively and immediately obvious to effect. It takes a great deal of practice to be able to do it swiftly and accurately. I - an amateur player - have been working at it and I certainly don't find it easy.
While I own a C clarinet, I find it does not blend very well with others playing a Bb or A and thus will transpose parts so I can play them on my Bb or A. (I use Smartscore) http://www.musitek.com/
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2016-03-24 02:36
If you are a whiz at clef recognition (I mean reading notes in different clefs), I am told that thinking of the parts in different clefs is another way to approach the problem (something french horn players have to do A LOT!).
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2016-03-24 03:25
You should buy a C clarinet. Usually composers write for C clarinet for a reason...
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Author: BartHx
Date: 2016-03-24 04:08
In high school and college, I was able to transpose easily. However, after having my instrument mostly put away for some forty years and having a career as a physics and chemistry instructor, I currently find rocket science to be easier. I expect that transposing on the fly would come back without too much difficulty if I had a need to do it, just as playing did. But, everyone is different and should progress from a starting point that is comfortable for themselves.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2016-03-24 05:04
Until the 1980s or, maybe, even the '90s, most American players transposed C parts, usually to Bb clarinet, occasionally to A. Then the objection gained currency that composers wrote with the characteristics of a certain keyed clarinet and to use a different one was to place the player's judgment above the composer's. So players started using C clarinets more. There are other instances in the literature where players traditionally transposed between A and Bb to solve some technical problem. That, too, is anathema to those who insist that the composer's intention is sacrosanct.
Professionals who play at a high artistic level argue about this with each side making its points. For someone who plays in local community orchestras, I think you're best off taking the path of least difficulty. Some parts are published in transposed versions by their original publishers or by reprint houses like Kalmus and Lucks. Some parts are simple enough to use as practice for sight-transposition. You should transpose what you can (you're allowed to practice it ahead of time - it needn't be sight-reading), look for parts for music that's more difficult, and either learn to use notation software (Finale, Sibelius or their "lite" versions or freeware like MuseScore) or develop a friendship with someone who is fluent with one of them to make your own transposed parts.
Even the players in the major orchestras don't necessarily transpose from the original part - I have an old manuscript Philadelphia Orchestra piccolo clarinet part for Til Eulenspiegel transposed to Eb clarinet from the original clarinet in D. A transposed part has since been published - I think by Kalmus.
Karl
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2016-03-25 00:22
"the composer's intention" isn't always that easy to ascertain.
However, at least 80% of the time when I play parts written for C clarinet, the benefits of using this instrument for the given repertoire (articulation, sound/ character and blend) become very clear. The critics of C clarinet are usually the ones who haven't made much (or any) effort to actually learn to play the instrument before writing it off as inferior. Or they "don't like the sound". Imagine having that same attitude about E-flat or bass clarinet!
The difference between B-flat and C is much bigger than the difference between B-flat and A. But transpose an A part onto your B-flat and you'll be scolded for playing on the wrong instrument.
I've had this rant before here. I understand that not everyone in a local community orchestra can put out the money for more than one clarinet. But the accepted norm of "Bb/A but no C" doesn't make sense.
Imagine if the original poster had asked about playing A clarinet parts. Do you think the first response would have been "You should learn to transpose. It's not rocket science"?
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2016-03-25 00:41
My philosophy on clarinet playing is play the instrument that makes things easy for you (the player). If that means playing in an easy key on an A clarinet as opposed to playing in loads of sharps in a Bb, then so be it.
Don't be bullied by other players for playing something on the 'wrong' clarinet instead of getting tied up in knots over something you're not comfortable playing of it's in a key you're not fluent in and there's an easier solution found by playing it on a different pitch clarinet.
The audience are still going to hear it played on a clarinet - it may not be played on THE clarinet it is scored for (and some arrangers only seem to write everything for Bb clarinet regardless), but it is still a clarinet.
I've had it from players moaning at me for using an A clarinet in the place of the scored Bb when I find it more logical to do so - worse still is when I've been lectured to by someone that played their written clarinet solo on soprano sax. At least I'm in the right ballpark playing the clarinet part on an actual clarinet (although not the clarinet it was scored for and there was time to change) and not a different instrument entirely, especially when they've then said as part of their half-arsed reasoning 'an A clarinet has got a completely different tone to a Bb clarinet'. If that was the case, then why are A clarinets even made, written for and played by many great orchestral or solo clarinettists? If you have the instruments at your disposal, then use them.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2016-03-25 01:06
Liquorice wrote:
> Imagine having that same attitude about E-flat
> or bass clarinet!
>
I know players who feel this way. They play them, but you can't make them like it.
> The difference between B-flat and C is much bigger than the
> difference between B-flat and A. But transpose an A part onto
> your B-flat and you'll be scolded for playing on the wrong
> instrument.
Yes, the first time I played a C clarinet, I thought it was much more like an Eb than a Bb. I do occasionally transpose A to Bb and vice-versa and have never been scolded. The switch isn't something anyone else even notices. I don't play in a major orchestra, but rather local free-lance work, so maybe the conductors at the highest level are sharper than the ones I play for.
>
> I understand that not everyone
> in a local community orchestra can put out the money for more
> than one clarinet. But the accepted norm of "Bb/A but no C"
> doesn't make sense.
>
Well, the thing is that it made perfectly good sense for a lot of major American players through the mid-20th century. I don't know about European players.
> Imagine if the original poster had asked about playing A
> clarinet parts. Do you think the first response would have been
> "You should learn to transpose. It's not rocket science"?
Yes. This is a problem my high school students run into all the time. And others who have posted similar problems here have gotten exactly that response. School orchestra directors don't pay attention to what clarinets are needed for the repertoire they program, but I've never had a high school student whose parents were willing to put out the money for an A clarinet to play three or four orchestral pieces over the course of a couple of years.
These days a professional player, and even a serious amateur who regularly plays orchestral repertoire, should have an A, a Bb and a C clarinet and, if he wants the most opportunities to play, an Eb and a bass if he can manage it. But Glenn, in the OP now that I re-read it, doesn't even say he's playing these parts in an orchestra.
Glenn, of course, just to play the parts by yourself for your own pleasure you can play on whatever instrument you have. If you are planning to play in an orchestra you will have to deal with this in one way or another.
Karl
Karl
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Author: MoonPatrol
Date: 2016-03-25 01:32
I was told about this once and am going to look into it. If the new cleff has the note names that match the notes in C, then It would be like learning the bass cleff for piano.
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Author: MoonPatrol
Date: 2016-03-25 01:42
I am not playing in a community orchestra but am on their list of back-up players. If I got a call I would be ill-equipped to play parts in A. I might get one in the future. When I am at home playing orchestra parts, I do not like the idea of playing a C part on my Bb clarinet. It would be pitched different than the original music. It is the same with playing the A part without the A clarinet. It would be a half step off. If I ever got invited to play with one of the community groups, I might have rehearsed a part on the wrong instrument and have some issues with memory coming back to complicate things. I just thought C parts would be re-printed in a Bb key so the player doesn't have this translation process going on which for me would make it not much fun.
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2016-03-25 02:17
kdk wrote:
"Well, the thing is that it made perfectly good sense for a lot of major American players through the mid-20th century."
Major American (and European) string players through the mid-20th century played with continuous vibrato, tenuto phrasing, sewing-machine bowing, etc. regardless whether they were playing Bach or Rachmaninov. The players' judgement was paramount, but the music was not well-served. Let's embrace the best of what they did, but not perpetuate their lack of informed choices.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2016-03-25 02:28
Be careful lest your modern, better-informed choices become the old-fashioned ill-informed ones of musicians half a century from now.
Fashions change, sometimes for no intrinsically rational reason.
Karl
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2016-03-25 02:43
It's essentially a different way of thinking of the same thing. Instead of reading C and consciously playing the next higher (by a full step) note, D, you instead use a moveable C clef and call the middle line of the staff C ("alto" clef or, sometimes, "viola" clef, since violists use it as their native clef). Then the next note up is D (3rd space up), etc. To read an A clarinet part, you'd think of a C clef on the fourth line (from the bottom) of the staff ("tenor" clef). The note in the third space from the bottom is then B. Once you get the hang of reading the new clef directly, the process skips one or, possibly, two steps. You still have to know and make the key signature and chromatic changes. The notes you play still need to be a whole step, not just a staff degree, higher from C to Bb. To transpose from A to Bb the notes need to be a half step, not just a staff degree, lower.
I personally admire horn players who can do this easily. I find it easier to consciously transpose.
Karl
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2016-03-25 03:08
If being more interested in Mozart than Marcellus is a fashion, then it's a fashion I'm proud to have been part of.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2016-03-25 06:51
If anything, I'd want to do it the other way. The problem is the instrument changes, which are impractically quick unless you use two separate mouthpieces.
Karl
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Author: maxopf
Date: 2016-03-25 07:12
That was my thought too, I'd rather play the solos on A clarinet. Some spots in the rest of the movement could be a little awkward on A clarinet though – plus then the instrument would be cold for the solos at the beginning of the 2nd movement.
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2016-03-25 13:41
There's a big difference between transposing out of necessity (too little time to change, cold hall, whatever) and downright rejecting an instrument.
I'm much more interested in what a composer wants than what a particular conductor wants. More often than not, when I play parts written for C clarinet, I find they work better on that instrument. It's not always better, but it certainly is worth trying out and I encourage more clarinet players to do the same.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2016-03-25 17:02
Liquorice wrote:
> There's a big difference between transposing out of necessity
> (too little time to change, cold hall, whatever) and downright
> rejecting an instrument.
>
> I'm much more interested in what a composer wants than what a
> particular conductor wants. More often than not, when I play
> parts written for C clarinet, I find they work better on that
> instrument. It's not always better, but it certainly is worth
> trying out and I encourage more clarinet players to do the
> same.
We agree here. I'd *much* rather play the opening of Moldau or the finale of Tchaikovsky's 3rd on a C clarinet. Yes, much of the Classical and Romantic orchestral literature written for C clarinet lies better on a C. But, that's the player's concern. I think purity in this regard is an issue that clarinetists of the past 40 or 50 years have been concerned about far more than anyone one else. As far as I can tell, we're the only ones who talk, much less argue about it.
I'm playing Nielsen's 4th symphony this week. There are passages in it that appear once for A clarinet and then, later in the movement, appear identically - note for note - for Bb clarinet or vice-versa. The music lies far better on the Bb. Why not play it that way?
On the other hand, I was taught long ago to play the opening of the 2nd movement of Shostakovitch 9 on a Bb clarinet instead of the A that's specified in the part. The reason was that the leap E5 to E6 is supposedly easier than the leap a half step higher on the A. I've done it that way ever since. But I'm reviewing the part now in preparation to play it next week and finding that, not only is the F5-F6 leap not so terrible, but the rest of the passage lies more smoothly on the A. So after all this time, I'm going to go back to playing it as Shostakovitch wrote it on A clarinet.
In either case, I would be thoroughly shocked if anyone says anything about my choice of instruments. No one else really cares.
Karl
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