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The Clarinet BBoard The C4 standard

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Re: B-flat basics

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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