Clarinet: Encyclopedia II - Clarinet - Characteristics of the instrument

Clarinet - Characteristics of the instrument

Clarinet - Tone

The clarinet has a distinctive liquid tone, resulting from the shape of the bore, whose characteristics vary between its three registers: the chalumeau (low), clarion or clarino (middle), and altissimo (high). Of all the wind instruments the clarinet has the widest compass, which is showcased in much wind band and orchestral writing. Additionally, improvements made to the fingering systems of the clarinet over time have enabled the instrument to be very agile; there are few restrictions to what it is able to play.

The bass clarinet has a characteristically deep mellow tone. It is used in large bands and orchestral pieces dating from around the 1880s onwards (e.g. Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet music, Mahler symphonies, Richard Strauss tone poems). The alto clarinet pitched in E flat is rarely found other than in clarinet choirs and large concert bands, although even the latter is becoming increasingly uncommon. Its range lies between the soprano and bass clarinets. An ancestor of this instrument, the basset horn in F, is used very rarely but can be heard in the works of Mozart. The most commonly used member of the clarinet family is the soprano B flat clarinet. Used quite often in band, orchestra, chamber, and solo settings, it has become one of the most versatile orchestal instruments. The tone quality varies greatly with the musician, the music, the style of clarinet, the reed, and humidity. The German (Oehler) clarinet generally has a fuller tone quality than the French (Boehm) system. In contrast, the French clarinet typically has a lighter, brighter tone quality. The differences in instruments and geopraphical isolation of players in different nations led to the development, from the last part of the 18th century on, of several different schools of clarinet playing. The most prominent of these schools were the German/Viennese traditions and the French school, centered around the clarinetists of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. Increasingly, through the proliferation of recording technology and the internet, examples of many different styles of clarinet playing are available to developing clarinetists today. This has led to decreased homogeneity of styles of clarinet playing. The modern clarinetist has an eclectic pallet of "acceptable" tone qualities to chose from, especially when working with an open-minded teacher.

Only a semitone below the B-flat clarinet is the A clarinet. Much of orchestral and chamber repertoire is composed originally for A clarinet. The A clarinet sound is a little darker, richer, and more robust than its close cousin, though the difference is relatively small. Often a clarinetist will transpose a part and play either up or down a half step on the "wrong" clarinet to make a passage easier to play (ie. playing a part written for A clarinet on B-flat clarinet or vice versa). An E flat clarinet is about eighteen inches (45cm) long and is used mainly in band and orchestral settings. Its tone is quite a bit brighter than any other member of the widely-used clarinet family and is known for its distinctive ability to cut through the orchestral texture even at loud volumes; this effect was utilized by such 20th century composers such as Mahler, Copland and Stravinsky. It is often regarded as the piccolo of the clarinet family and often affectionately reffered to as an "E-fer."

Clarinetists used to make their own reeds. Now most prefer to buy their reeds already manufactured, while continuing to adjust them in various ways after they have been purchased. Clarinet reeds come in varying "strengths" generally described from "soft" to "hard." The most common scale is a 1-5 system with most manufacturers having slight differences in their own systems. It is important to note that there is NO standardized system of designating reed strength. Beginning clarinetists often are initially given softer reeds, usually a 2 to 2 1/2. Jazz clarinetists often remain on softer reeds, as they are easy for bending pitch. Most classical musicians work their way up the reed size as their embouchures strengthen. The benefit of a harder reed is a sturdy, round tone. The major manufacturers of clarinet reeds include the Vandoren company (France), Gonzalez and Zonda (both manufactured from the same cane in Argentina), Legere, Mitchell Lurie and many others.

Clarinet - Range

All widely-used clarinets are transposing instruments, meaning that the written pitch does not correspond to the same-named note on the piano keyboard. For a standard B-flat clarinet, the written range stretches from the E below middle C to around the G two octaves and a fifth above middle C. The top portion of the clarinet range, like other woodwind instruments is not well-defined; many advanced players can play fluently a fourth or more above "high G." Being a B♭ instrument, the written range is a step higher than the actual pitch that is sounding. For example, if a B-flat clarinet plays a C, a B-flat is produced, the same pitch as the B-flat on the piano keyboard. An A clarinet has the same written range but with a sounding range that is a half-step lower (a written C on an A clarinet will produce an A) . All clarinets have roughly the same written range. A B-flat bass clarinet operates an octave lower than the B-flat clarinet, however, most professional and advanced bass clainetists own instruments with extensions down to a C a full octave below written middle C (this concert pitch is a B-flat). This gives the bass clarinet a useable range of almost four octaves, quite close to the range of the bassoon; indeed, many bass clarinetists perform works originally intended for bassoon or cello because of the plethora of literature for those two instruments and the scarcity of solo works for the bass clarinet. Bass clarinets which have this altered range are refered to as having a "low C extension" on their instrument. Basses that do not go down to the low written C usually have an E-flat as their lowest note (one half-step below the soprano clarinets' written range).

The range of a clarinet can be divided into three distinctive registers. The bottom octave and a half (from written E below middle C to the B-flat above middle C) is known as the 'chalumeau register' (named after the ancient greek instrument that was one of the clarinet's earliest ancestors), of which the top four notes or so are known as the 'throat tones'. Producing a blended tone with the surrounding registers takes much skill and practice. The middle register is termed the 'clarion' register and spans just over an octave (from written B above middle C, to the C two octaves above middle C). The top or 'altissimo' register starts with the written C# two octaves above middle C and goes up to around the G above that, without a definite upper limit.

Clarinet - Construction and acoustics

Professional clarinets are usually made from African hardwood, often grenadilla, (rarely) Honduran rosewood and sometimes even cocobolo. Historically other woods, notably boxwood, were used. One major manufacturer makes professional clarinets from a composite mixture of plastic resin and wood chips — such instruments are less affected by humidity, but are heavier than the equivalent wood instrument. Student instruments are usually composite or plastic resin, commonly "resonite", an ABS resin. Metal soprano clarinets were popular in the early twentieth century, until plastic instruments supplanted them; metal construction is still used for some contra-alto and contrabass clarinets. Some student mouthpieces are made of ebonite. The instrument uses a single wooden (sometimes "fiber" or plastic) reed which is placed on a mouthpiece and held in place by a ligature. Pressure variations allow the reed to vibrate and produce the instrument's sound.

The body is equipped with seven tone holes (six front, one back) and a complicated set of keys which allow every note of the chromatic scale to be produced. The most common system of keys was named the Boehm System by its designer Hyacinthe Klosé in honour of the flute designer Theobald Boehm, but is not the same as the Boehm System used on flutes. The other main system of keys is called the Oehler system and is used mostly in Germany and Austria (see History). Related is the Albert system used by some jazz, klezmer, and eastern European folk musicians.

The hollow bore inside the instrument has a basically cylindrical shape, being roughly the same diameter for most of the length of the tube. There is a subtle hourglass shape, with its thinnest part at the junction between the upper and lower joint. This hourglass figure is not visible to the naked eye, but helps in the resonance of the sound. The diameter of the bore affects characteristics such as the stability of the pitch of a given note, or, conversely, the ability with which a note can be 'bent' in the manner required in jazz and other styles of music. The bell is at the bottom of the instrument and flares out to improve the tone of the lowest notes.

A clarinetist moves between registers through use of the register key, or speaker key. The fixed reed and fairly uniform diameter of the clarinet give the instrument the configuration of a cylindrical stopped pipe in which the register key, when pressed, causes the clarinet to produce the note a twelfth higher. This interval corresponds to the third harmonic, whereas most other woodwinds go up to the second harmonic, an octave higher, when the register key is pressed. The fifth and seventh harmonics are also available to skilled players, sounding a further sixth and fourth higher respectively.

The highest notes on a clarinet can have a piercing quality and can be difficult to tune precisely. Different individual instruments can be expected to play differently in this respect. This becomes critical if a number of instruments are required to play a high part in unison. Fortunately for audiences, disciplined players can use a variety of fingerings to introduce slight variations into the pitch of these higher notes. It is also common for high melody parts to be split into close harmony to avoid this issue.

The parts that make up a clarinet are as follows (description follows the illustration from right to left):

• The reed is attached to the mouthpiece by the ligature, and the whole assembly is held in the player’s mouth, with the reed on the underside of the mouthpiece, pressing against the player's bottom lip. The formation of the mouth around the mouthpiece and reed is called the embouchure.

• Next is the short barrel; this part of the instrument may be extended in order to fine-tune the clarinet. As the pitch of the clarinet is fairly temperature sensitive some instruments have interchangeable barrels whose lengths vary very slightly. Additonal compensation for pitch variation can be made by increasing the length of the instrument by pulling out at the barrel. Some performers employ a single, synthetic barrel with a thumbwheel that enables the barrel length to be altered on the fly.

• The main body of the clarinet is divided (in most soprano clarinets, and some harmony clarinets) into the upper joint whose holes and most keys are operated by the left hand, and the lower joint with holes and most keys operated by the right hand. The left thumb operates both a tone hole and the register key. The cluster of keys in the middle of the illustration are known as the trill keys and are operated by the right hand. These give the player alternative fingerings which make it easy to play ornaments and trills that would otherwise be awkward. The entire weight of the smaller clarinets is supported by the right thumb behind the lower joint on what is misleadingly called the thumb-rest. Alto and larger clarinets are supported with a neck strap or a floor peg.

• Finally, the flared end is known as the bell. Contrary to popular belief, the bell does not amplify the sound; rather, it improves the uniformity of the instrument's tone for the lowest notes in each register. For the other notes the sound is produced almost entirely at the tone holes and the bell is irrelevant. As a result, when playing to a microphone, the best tone can be recorded by placing the microphone not at the bell but a little way from the finger-holes of the instrument. This relates to the position of the instrument when playing to an audience: pointing down at the floor, except in the most vibrant parts of certain styles of music and when called for specifically by the composer in the music (for example, in the music of Gustav Mahler).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Characteristics of the instrument", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki