Author: Apersonn
Date: 2019-10-25 08:36
This is my first post on this website, so bear with me.
As a preface, I have been playing Bass Clarinet for 2-3 years so far, and reached first chair in my school region's (state-wide districts, larger than school districts) Honor Band this year, being only second chair last year.
As part of the All-State Band program, I have been accepted for both Bass Clarinet and Contrabass Clarinet (whether it is Bb or Eb contra, I do not know right now). I auditioned on my regular bass clarinet, and simply had the perform the final selected excerpt on contrabass in order to submit a contrabass audition.
The only reason I got in was that my audition was part of callbacks. I previously did not plan to audition, as I did not have access to my instrument over the summer, and as such could not practice the audition pieces, but they did not have a fourth bass clarinet nor did they have a contrabass clarinet, so I auditioned for both after having only a couple of days to work on the auditions.
Nonetheless, the contrabass I used for the audition is in a state of disrepair; it has not been used for years, and other contrabasses my school owns are even worse. My audition was very likely the only one received and was accepted despite its (relatively) horrible performance.
My question for you readers is about the issues I am currently experiencing with it. My director plans to borrow a better contrabass clarinet, perhaps a Bb one, from another school or somewhere else, but I would like to know which issues are caused by a bad condition or are common in playing the contrabass and *should be practiced.*
The issues are as follows: extremely weak throat tones (from G# to Bb), *very* squeaky low clarino register (B to G), especially on the attack, and relatively squeaky clarino register overall.
I am finding that I can temporarily relieve the squeakiness by pushing the thumb key harder or by going soft on the attack, and can deal with the weak throat tones by pushing faster air through the instrument.
Thoughts? Ideas? All feedback is welcome.
Edit: By the way, I am using a 2 1/2 Rico Reed which is slightly narrower than the mouthpiece fits, which may be the cause. I am planning to get a synthetic reed for the contrabass (for one to avoid the ~$10 cost of a normal, more fragile cane reed, and to remove the uncertainty of cane reed use) if a synthetic reed proves useful on my bass clarinet.
Post Edited (2019-10-25 08:47)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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