Author: Clarimellonet
Date: 2019-02-19 19:24
I use a matched set of HW 185s as my "modern" clarinets. I absolutely love them, but there is a fairly decent adjustment period to get used to them. A lot of French/American mouthpieces simply don't work as well with them and won't let them ring as much as they couple with a German or Austrian mouthpiece with a wider exit bore. I was lucky that the set I purchased came with four Viotto mouthpieces (both the N1 and the N1+2), which I used for a while until I felt comfortable enough to make mouthpieces that felt more comfortable to me but kept the response and tuning of the Viottos.
Obviously the fingerings are almost identical to the French instruments, but depending on which model of Wurlitzer you're looking at, there may be some intonation issues and fingering issues that can crop up. If the model you're looking at has a ring for L3, you won't be able to play low B to low D simply by raising L3, so you'll have to lift both L3 and R2 in order to do a quick tremelo between those pitches. The left hand clarion B and C can tend toward sharp if you voice them like you would on a French mouthpiece, so a few HW players I know tend to learn to play soft attacks on those notes without the register key at all! I've never had that problem, but I used German and Austrian mouthpeices from the start, so I tried not to go into this with any preconceptions. Throat tones are much easier to voice without resonance fingerings, but the trade off is that some of the alternate altissimo fingerings using the A and Ab keys aren't as secure as one would prefer, particularly on the Eb clarinet. Some people find the slightly shorter left hand pinky keys bothersome, as well as the position of the thumbrest, but those can be adjusted, similarly, some take issue with the elongated Eb/Bb side key that comes on some models, but I actually love it.
I would say the learning period took me a month or so to get used to the technical and intonation issues on the HW instruments and about 9 months of experimenting with setups and reeds to get the sound I was looking for. You can go a couple different ways as far as setups. Modern German and Austrian mouthpieces are obviously the most natural choice, but if you're wanting to stick to French reeds, the PlayNick mouthpieces, the M30D and B40D from Vandoren, and the Hans Colbers mouthpieces are also excellent and can have the same response and tuning with a more "familiar" feel. I think the switch is worth the investment of time and money, but it would be a "switch." No HW players I know personally have ever gone back to Buffet or Selmer afterwards, and indeed my own R13s feel totally foreign to me now.
Good luck!
Thomas Carroll
Historical Clarinets and Chalumeaux
http://carrollclarinet.com
lotzofgrenser@gmail.com
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