 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Bob Schmedake
Date: 2002-12-11 13:37
I still struggle with the fact that a B-flat instrument playing a note is off by 2 half steps from a concert C instrument. When I play my instrument into a tuner, it indicates a different note than I am playing. I assume the tuner is measuring the frequency of the note (is this the problem?). So why would it register different, or why would it sound different.
Isn't a note a note? When I play 440Hz, don't I get an A? What makes an instrument sound like it is playing at a different frequency?
Does it have anything to do with the harmonics that the instrument plays along with the primary frequency? I've heard that clarinets don't create the even harmonics of the base frequency. Is this related?
Help, I need a musical physicist geek :-o.
Bob
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Author: William
Date: 2002-12-11 15:03
"Isn't a note a note? When I play 440Hz, don't I get an A?"
The clarinet belongs to a large group of instruments designated to be "transposing" instruments. That simply means that when the player of a transposing instrument reads a note and plays it, the instrument is actually sounding another note--or "transposing". So the answer to your question is "yes and no." Yes--440Hz is always the pitch A; but to produce that A (440Hz) what you need to read and finger on your Bb clarinet is the notation B natural. So, "No", a note is not a note (on transposing instruments, that is) When you play into a tuning meter on any transposing instrument, it will tell you what note you are actually "sounding" but not the note you are necessarily playing (fingering and reading). So when you play (read and finger) C on your Bb clarinet, the actual sound being produced is Bb (concert). Tuning meters usually respond in "concert" pitch. Boy, am I rambling!!!
I do not know why the concept of "transposing instrument" ever can to be and that why all instruments are not simply allowed to read the note they are required to sound-- ex. you want an A, you read an A. But, historically, we are "stuck" with it, so we must continue to live with the confusion.
Bottom line--it is a reading problem developed over the years by the practice of composers writing different parts for tranposing instruments, not an accoustical problem.
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Author: Ralph G
Date: 2002-12-11 15:09
Someone can give you a better read on this, but the clarinet is a transposition instrument. On a Bb clarinet, when we play what we know as a B natural over the break, what we're really playing is an A at 440 Hz. The piano is your reference. On a piano, the same note is both a true and a written A.
If you know a little about the piano, you know that a C major scale is very easy to play; all the notes are naturals, you don't use any of the black keys and the fingering pattern simple and intuitive. That same standard is applied to the clarinet -- the C major scale is likewise simple fingering-wise. The confusion comes in how the standard clarinet of today came to be pitched one whole step lower. Someone else can give you a better history lesson that I can, but at some point the clarinet pitched in C (just like the piano) was much more prevalent than today. The instrument's standard pitch evolved, but the fingerings remained the same (save for differences between the fingering systems).
Think of time zones. There is an absolute reference for time (Greenwich Mean Time) that the entire world can use, but the earth is divided up into time zones to make local time more sensible. Here in Corpus Christi, Texas, when Letterman's over, it makes more sense to say "It's 11:30 p.m." than to say "It's 5:30 a.m. in England." Likewise, when playing that note with all tone holes covered, top right paddle key fingered and the register key open, it's easier to think "C natural" than it is to think "Bb on the piano."
By the way, when you play your B natural, your tune should register an A and not some other note (if you're on a Bb clarinet).
Hope this helps.
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Author: jez
Date: 2002-12-11 15:25
Bob,
It's all done to make it EASIER for us.
Imagine being a recorder-player and having a selection of instruments of different sizes. Because they DON'T transpose you've got to learn a completely different set of fingerings for each one. The all-fingers-down note might be an F or a C or a D depending on which size you've got hold of. The fact that the fingering SYSTEM is the same is of little help, it's just confusing.
With the clarinet you can play any size (there are enough of them) and you always relate the visual image of the note to a particular fingering so you don't have to worry about it. The composer/arranger/printer does all the work for you.
It's best not to think too much about what note is actually coming out unless you're forced to in order to correct mistakes compared to other instruments.
To play 440Hz on your B flat you dont play A you play B. If you want to play 440Hz on an E flat you play F#.
The strange thing is that the C clarinet has not become the most common as is the case with flute, oboe & bassoon. This is because most people agree that the B flat is the one that sounds best, but remember, there are flutes in B flat and G, oboes in F (English horn) etc.
Originally it was necessary to have instruments in different keys because the early ones were not truly chromatic so to join in with other musicians who could play in any key the relevant-keyed clarinet would be available. Now we've settled on the B flat and A which makes flat & sharp keys easier for us.
Thank God we didn't go the way of the recorder player!
jez
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2002-12-11 16:08
Bob -
The clarinet came late to the orchestra, only becoming established during Mozart's life. At the beginning, it was a doubler's instrument. A flutist, oboist or bassoonist would switch off for a movement or a composition. Thus the fingering had to be as close as possible to the doubler's main instrument. (The flute and oboe notes and basic fingerings match the clarinet's upper register. The bassoon's notes, in treble clef, and fingerings match the clarinet's lower register.)
The first orchestral clarinets were mostly in C. However, as you know if you've played a C clarinet, its tone is brighter than that of the other woodwinds. The longer instrument in Bb is a much better match, and it became the standard.
Since the clarinet overblows at the 12th, it needs keys to bridge the gap, making the early clarinet very clumsy to play in keys with more than two sharps or flats. Thus the A clarinet came into use for works in sharp keys. As you know, it has a slightly different sound from the Bb. (The difference between a C and a Bb clarinet is much more pronounced.)
I play a lot of recorder. Almost all modern instruments are in C, where the fingerings correspond to the clarinet's upper register, or in F, where the fingerings correspond to its lower register. It took me only about two weeks to learn F fingerings. They clicked into place nicely. I also have an alto in G, for which I suppose I could learn the fingerings, but I play it so infrequently that I just read down a step.
It's certainly possible to learn different fingerings, but transposing is about the same level of difficulty. In fact, when I play a recorder in F, the feel of the instrument "keys in" F fingerings. Transposing C parts on a Bb clarinet can become pretty much automatic, as long as you keep your attention on it.
Music publishers transpose Bb clarinet parts to play with "standard" C fingerings. If beginners were taught that the open note is an F, then they'd have to transpose everything from the written parts.
There a good thread currently on the Klarinet board about transposing. Horn players do it as a matter of course. Their parts, even in high school, are in F, Eb and Bb, and conservatory students learn every possibility. Trumpet players, too. And every conservatory student learns to read the various clefs (soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, French violin, etc.).
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Bob Schmedake
Date: 2002-12-11 22:41
So this is all about transposition. It has nothing to do with which harmonics are produced when a note is played?
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Author: Hank
Date: 2002-12-11 22:42
Hey, what we need is the little thing that folk guitar players use on the neck so everything is in 1st position or in C:-).
A capo I think it is called.
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Author: Dave Beal
Date: 2002-12-13 18:22
Nope, it has nothing to do with harmonics or overtones. It's just a convention about how we name and write notes. When you play your clarinet with all the holes open, we call and write that as G on the second line of the treble clef staff, but it's really concert pitch F. We could have decided to write it as F, and you wouldn't have had to ask this question. But as jez pointed out, then F on the Bb clarinet would have been fingered differently than F on an Eb clarinet. (On the Eb, it would be fingered as what we now call D.) That would have required clarinet players to think harder, and we don't like to think. Transposing also makes us think, but not as often. :-)
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Author: Ken Lagace
Date: 2019-02-20 00:34
A simplified story book look at history;
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Three hundred years ago, every town had their own instrument players who used the instruments made right there in town and had fun playing with the local players. The problem was they weren't able to play with players in the next town because their instruments were different sizes.
Here are a few of the clarinet sizes that are still around today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjERmUZUY78&t=20s
After years of playing only in the local town taverns wasn't practical, all the local leaders got together and decided that a C on the piano was 440hz and that was that.
(Google "History of 440 Hz" for the real story)
So now the problem was how to get all the towns to play their different sized instruments together.
So... the local leaders convened again declared that when an instrument fingers a 'C', whatever pitch came out was the type of instrument it was. If it sounded a Bb, then it was a Bb instrument and so on.
So the gracious composers started to write their scores in different and proper keys for each instrument and all the towns could now play in each other's taverns.
And most of them lived happily ever after.
End of Story.
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Author: Luuk ★2017
Date: 2019-02-20 13:36
Written music for transposing instruments define the fingerings to be applied, not the notes to be produced. Clarinettists read fingerings, not 'real notes'.
That is the reason why different fingerings are used on soprano (in C) and alto recorders (in F): since their music is not written for transposing instruments but meant as the notes to be sounded, the player has to apply different fingerings.
Regards,
Luuk
Philips Symphonic Band
The Netherlands
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