alto clarinet

[Carl H.]

Other than defining a nerd, what are they used for?

I've never been called on or seen anybody else actually play music written for one. I'll add I've played Eb, transposed C parts to Bb, Bb, A, bass and contrabass clarinets but never heard of an actual alto part.

 

[tictactux]

Other than defining a nerd, what are they used for?

I've never been called on or seen anybody else actually play music written for one. I'll add I've played Eb, transposed C parts to Bb, Bb, A, bass and contrabass clarinets but never heard of an actual alto part.

I've seen some, but they're - sadly - usually doubled away by those dime-a-dozen alto saxes. Probably because they are not usually found in the typical band lineup. Perhaps a classic hen-and-egg problem.

Here's a piece with an Alto clarinet in a quartet-with-mandolin. (And before someone asks, Helmut (the guy to the right) plays on an Oscar Adler clarinet, but he said he has switched to a Seggelke in the meantime)

 

[Gandalfe]

We see one or so alto parts in a whole wind band season. Suzy covers them for us and the saxes don't cover the cue notes.

Ben, I luv this recording; thanks for the pointer!

 

[SOTSDO]

As much as it pains me, I've got a few things to add on this topic:

• Despite their low standing in the musical world, there are some organizations that value the things. The fact that all three of the Big Three manufacturers make a professional version of the instrument, and that such august organizations as the Garde Republique of the French Army and (at one time) our Marine Band have/had people who were being paid good money on a regular basis to play them, is strong indication that they are (or were) taken seriously.

• Despite the dearth (the dearth, I tells yah!) of parts for them in a global sense in professional circles, some composers (chiefly of the English persuasion, like Holbrook and (I think) Holst) have written parts for them in serious symphonic works. I don't speak for the quality of the music, just that it exists.

• There's not too many things that an alto clarinet can do that cannot be done by soprano clarinets (at the high end) or bass clarinet (at the low end). Of course, the argument can be made that it's an intermediate voice. But, by that logic, we should also be playing clarinets in G here in the western world...

• The fact that "wind band" parts (I'm assuming that this is the same as a concert band) are getting scarce for them is an indication that their use is being dropped here and there.

Back in the days when I rummaged through concert band arrangements to look for the better bass clarinet parts (even in high school, I was looking out for number one), virtually every chart had an alto clarinet part in the stack, right before the part that mattered. Although I never bothered to put two and two together, my district did not bother to own one (and still doesn't, if what I have seen in yearbooks is any indication), and I did not regularly use one at any time in my life. (My first cash money for playing music came via way of Selmer, during one of my high school years - a small fortune at the time plus I got a number of bass mouthpieces, one of which I use to this day.)

This (apparent) diminution of music for the alto clarinet parallels the pathetic bass saxophone, which once was regularly scored for in concert band music. I have written elsewhere of my analysis of the bass sax phenomenon (as to where they all went), and I would imagine that in twenty years, someone's going to be wondering the same about alto clarinets...

• But maybe not. Before they closed up their operations up in Dallas, I had the privilege of visiting the instrument repair shop for the Brook-Mays folks. While there, I saw a stack of twenty or thirty student and pro alto clarinets literally stacked up like cordwood. All were bell- and crook-free, and the ones in the stack were often minus keywork as well. If there are that many in the junk pile, surely there must be quite a few out there, punishing young high school girls all over the country.

However, if this is true, then where did all of the old bass saxes go? Surely, there is a big pile of them somewhere, just like the alto clarinets. If so, I'd like to find that stack...

 

[tictactux]

• The fact that "wind band" parts (I'm assuming that this is the same as a concert band) are getting scarce for them is an indication that their use is being dropped here and there. (...) bass saxophone, which once was regularly scored for in concert band music.

I am not sure this is a matter of dropping but rather of a to have or to have not. A 25 players strong concert/wind band simply has no spares to play bass sax or alto clarinet (and, during summer, often bass clarinet or bari sax either), because these folks simply will dearly be missed in their "home" sections where volume is needed, not necessarily lyrical midtones. "Skimp on brass" would be my suggestion, but this isn't popular everywhere...especially if one must consider oneself lucky to find a 2nd 'bone player these days.

Many bands have shrunk to "the bear necessities" and just can't afford the luxury to feed those "odd" instrumentalists. The state of our societies maybe is reflected in the variety of instruments played in their bands...*C*R*I*S*I*S*!

 

[SOTSDO]

Well, there's truth to that statement, of course. However, I would submit that the vast ocean of concert band literature is written (perhaps 98% of it) for the educational market, which usually has an decent sized sea of clarinet players to shuttle off to the harmony clarinet chairs.

Unless you go the custom arrangement route (which can be done for less than most may think), then the standard folder of charts is going to contain whatever is considered to be standard instrumentation for the type of group for which it was written. And, that may have shifted over the years a bit.

For example, in my four years of relatively intense concert band participation (two community groups, a school group, and a county-wide school group) during the 1960's, I only recall a few tunes that called for an Eb clarinet, and perhaps 20% that included a contra-bass or contra-alto clarinet part. When I last dipped my toe into the concert band pool (very briefly in 1992), all of the charts had both instruments required.

And, 'twas a time when there were printed parts for bass saxes. In the main community group that I played in up in Saint Louis back in the Swingin' Sixties, they had a body of music that stretched back to the 1920's stashed in their library. Of those old charts, there were more than a few where a bass sax chart was provided. We didn't have one, of course, but the part was there.

Times change, and (of necessity) musical groups will lag behind the change rather than anticipate. Of course, the music does too, but ofttimes is is far easier to change the composition of an arrangement (if by no other means, by dropping some parts) than it is to rustle up additional musicians (or tell some that they will not be wanted until after the next concert). Nothing new there - just a difficulty when you are short of saxes (or flutes, or trumpets).

In any event, I don't envy a community group leader's problems in this area. I have enough trouble with getting eighteen odd folks to rehearse for a "play for pay" group (although they are always willing to show up at a job), and I'd not want to do it for a forty piece community group (where there's nothing there but the joy).

 

[Carl H.]

So, other than filler parts in band (school ensemble) these aren't really played anymore.

Was it ever used in orchestral music? The majority of my playing is in orchestra situations, both symphonies and theatrical pits. I take it there is no reason to waste space or money on one in my situation then?

 

[Merlin]

So, other than filler parts in band (school ensemble) these aren't really played anymore.

Was it ever used in orchestral music? The majority of my playing is in orchestra situations, both symphonies and theatrical pits. I take it there is no reason to waste space or money on one in my situation then?

I've done a couple of concert band pieces recently that called for alto clarinet in fairly important roles.

However, given that your playing is in symphonies and theatre orchestras - take a pass on it.

 

[clarnibass]

Other than defining a nerd, what are they used for?

I've never been called on or seen anybody else actually play music written for one.

Some players don't play only music that is written, or only what they are called to play. Some players decide what music they want to play, choose what instruments to play, and even play their own music, improvise, or have music written based on what they play and want to play, etc. Some of these players might choose to play alto clarinet.

Re defining a nerd, I've seen that joke on some forums but (at least in my country) never heard it. No one here really thinks that. If anything it's an unusual instrument that is curious to people. It is VERY rare here. I rarely play one but I played it a lot more if I had a very good one like a new Yamaha.... (maybe some day).

Here's a piece with an Alto clarinet in a quartet-with-mandolin.

How do you know it's an alto clarinet? I don't know what it is, but more likely it's a basset horn. Great moment especially on 4:05. BTW it's interesting (and also in their other clips) how the camera person focus on the person who isn't playing the lead at the moment. It looks like they are confused....

 

[SOTSDO]

In over forty one years of playing shows, I have never seen a book that called for alto clarinet. Almost as rare was the contra-alto clarinet (two shows), although it's much more common in modern shows (from about 1990).

Orchestrally speaking (and quoting from memory, the information here coming from old orchestration books by Forsyth and Berliotz/Richard Strauss), there are very few works in the repertory that call for an alto clarinet (as opposed to a basset horn, a very different beast although they appear to be similar). The one work that I recall at this remove was "Apollo And The Seaman", by Granger or some other English fellow. In that piece, the alto clarinet (and bass clarinet) have an important role. However, I've never seen it programmed anywhere, pro or amateur.

Hell, even their cases are weird, sort of like a long trumpet case only invariably (due to school ownership) funky.

Some indication of the call for the things can be found in their auction prices on eBay. You can pick one up, even the top end ones, for less than a soprano horn of comparable quality.

 

[pete]

Well, there's truth to that statement, of course. However, I would submit that the vast ocean of concert band literature is written (perhaps 98% of it) for the educational market, which usually has an decent sized sea of clarinet players to shuttle off to the harmony clarinet chairs.

I'm an Air Force brat -- father was in the AF and we shuttled around all over the place -- this also means that I attended 5 different high schools.

All the high schools I attended had obscenely large bands. One was even so large that they had two "levels" -- something like "pops" and "symphonic", IIRC. Heck, my graduating class had 250 students.

Amusingly, in the school with the two bands, there was one bari sax player: me. My part was deemed important enough that I was in both of the bands. And jazz ensemble. And marching band.

So, when you've got around 30 or so clarinet players, you need to find something for them to do. In the case of the schools I'm referencing, they stuck 2-3 people on bass clarinet (one of who was me, for awhile), 2 people on alto clarinet and one brave soul on the Leblanc paperclip contrabass discovered in the storage closet (that was me, as well: I just thought the horn was kewl).

(My high school playing career was Bb clarinet, bass clarinet, bari sax, tenor sax, contrabass clarinet and then back to bari sax.)

As an aside, it was interesting that we didn't have anyone playing Eb soprano clarinet. We had two of 'em in storage. No one wanted to try, I guess -- which is the reason I started playing bari ("No one wants to play something that big! It's too heavy to carry home!"). No contralto clarinets around. Never saw a basset horn in our storage room, but there were scary brasses with four bells.

However, I attended large schools. Small school? Let's use my wife's school she teaches at, as an example. They have two trumpet players, a trombone player, flute, oboe, couple clarinet players couple alto sax players and a couple percussionists.

Challenging instrumentation to score for. I also think that the school owns ... a trumpet.

Anyhow, what Terry says is very correct: there is little to no call for "professional" alto clarinet players. Occasionally, someone will get a call to play contrabass or contralto clarinet -- I've seen concerts with these beasties -- but you're gonna get way more work with a bass clarinet or a Bb/A soprano.

So,

* I agree: most orchestration for alto clarinet is for "educational purposes only"; i.e. just "in case" you have people playing 'em -- and you'd have people playing 'em if you have a large band with a well-stocked storage closet (hey, the tenors I used were school-owned Mark VIs and a Martin Committee).

* I agree: one shouldn't aspire to play alto clarinet. If you wanna play and that's the only thing they have, go for it. But get chops on Bb clarinet or bass clarinet. Better, OWN a bass clarinet and be good at playing it.

* I agree: some very large military bands, particulary in France and England, may have been so large that they'd have alto clarinet players, just for kicks. I'd wonder if they'd be the first to get laid off when poor economic times hit .

 

[Groovekiller]

Never saw a basset horn in our storage room, but there were scary brasses with four bells.

I wanna hear about the instruments with 4 bells.

 

[SOTSDO]

The repair and rebuilding shop that I use up in Saint Louis (Saint Louis Woodwind and Brasswind) has one of these up on the wall in the back. It's shaped like a baritone horn, with an upright section in paper clip style and with the two bells poking up and facing forwards.

There were a number of horns designed by Sax that had multiple bells - one of them was a seven (!!!) bell trombone. Ol' Adolph was one busy little puppy there in Dinant...

 

[pete]

The repair and rebuilding shop that I use up in Saint Louis (Saint Louis Woodwind and Brasswind) has one of these up on the wall in the back. It's shaped like a baritone horn, with an upright section in paper clip style and with the two bells poking up and facing forwards.

There were a number of horns designed by Sax that had multiple bells - one of them was a seven (!!!) bell trombone. Ol' Adolph was one busy little puppy there in Dinant...

+1. Allegedly Sax had made several instruments like this -- I think the one that I saw was a tuba-ish thing -- by 1852. Brief Googling suggests that multiple manufacturers made horns like this (Distin and others).

Can't find any pictures, tho. I'm pretty sure there's at least one in Horwood's Sax: His Life and Legacy.

Guy playing a multi-belled coronet (at 5:12).

 

[SOTSDO]

A History Lesson (of sorts)

Back in the day when every European infantry regiment (and many American ones) had its own "music" in the form of a regimental band, there was a great call for musical instruments that would perform well in an outdoor situation. (Marching in the pre- and early-railroad days was the main method of deployment, and regimental bands were used to regulate the step of the troops when on route, as well as for "bragging rights" with other regiments.)

Numerous instruments were invented or "improved" with this use in mind; the saxophone was only the most comprehensive effort that "took" - similar efforts were made with brass instruments and percussion as well. These multi-bell horns were all part of that effort. Playing outdoors in those days was no different than today - soft and subtle was not the best way to ensure that the sound would carry when it was supposed to.

As the years past, marching became less and less important to the military. Railroads and motor transport took over the mass movements, and there was no way to keep the troops entertained with the band in three trucks and everyone else out of earshot. The last war where troops marched off to war behind their regimental music was World War I, and we all know how that worked out. Military bands gradually became less important, and shrank to the ceremony-only role that you see today.

Today, "marching bands" have largely morphed into high school "half time entertainment" and DCI bugle-based ensembles, but even there you still see some elements of the original concerns. Brass predominates, and any woodwinds beyond saxophones are mostly there as rank and file and not for musical purposes. Only in Thanksgiving Day and Rose Bowl type parades do marching bands still "march", and even there the music that one plays is often at cross purposes with everything else for parade purposes.

Boring old "war story" follows:

There is nothing worse for troops in formation than to be exposed to multiple bands, each playing to a different meter. Whilst I was an evil-minded drill instructor in the United States Army, I turned this little phenomenon to my advantage.

In the Basic Training Company of which I was a part of the cadre, the commanding officer, a captain of a musical bent, decided that what was needed to improve our charges' drill field performance (upon which he was graded, just like everything else) was for us to "get rhythm". Knowing that cadence calling could only go so far, he managed to obtain a healthy allotment of side and bass drums, and we were instructed to sift through each incoming "class" for percussion-enabled folks that would better allow us to drill our platoons individually.

But, he made two mistakes, and important ones at that.

The first was to have each platoon's drum elements (I managed to shag two side drums and one bass drum) work separately. (Traditionally, the "music" of a regiment or company all functioned together, but for our forty to fifty man platoons, it was easier to keep them assigned to their own platoons.) This, of course instilled loyalty to their own platoons, and not to the company as a whole. It also allowed each platoon leader to choose the rhythm to which they marched, and some were quite imaginative as to the "street beats" that they could turn out.

His second error was the more important of the two, and that was to forget that most people are only comfortable with a 4/4 rhythm when marching. With that little nugget in mind, I immediately started my drum "unit" in with both perfecting their skills, and with learning a special little piece of flams, half-paradiddles and riffs that came from a bit of classical music: 'Mars, the giver of war' from Holst's "The Planets Suite".

Many of you can see where this is going. While pitched by Holst as a bit of martial music, 'Mars' is different in one particular: it is in 5/4 time. As a result, the "da-da-da dum, dat da-da dum" rhythm only works for marching if you know that you need to gauge your step over two bars rather than one. (Marching is really a two beats ("Left, Right!") to the bar formulation.) And, when you throw in the need to issue commands for turns and the like, you need to understand that what works in one bar might not work too well in the second of the pattern.

As it is very difficult to march to 5/4 time if you do not know what you are doing, my platoon (with a doubled up percussion section happily throwing in Holst along with the other stuff) had to train long and hard to make it work. However, the malice involved (which virtually all of them could understand after the first session on the drill field) was more than enough to motivate them to make the effort. This resulted in a group that may not have been the most accurate on the rifle or orienteering ranges, but which could turn a sharper appearance when at drill than any other in the battalion.

To keep the tactic low key, I always rehearsed them in "Holst marching" away from the rest of the platoons. We would trudge an extra quarter mile each day to "work out" on a little used area near the joint motor pool at Fort Knox, just to help mask the "difference" between my group and everyone else.

The payoff came during massed drill with the entire company, and at the battalion graduations. Once assembled in a company sized mass (five platoons), my enthusiastic (and usually top-notch) little "band" would step off to the "left foot first, every other bar" bit from Holst with no perceived problem. Meanwhile, the adjacent platoons (and the first time out, the whole company) would break step as our solid percussion set up "interference patterns" in their little olive drab minds. My platoon would look top notch, and everyone else came off looking second-best - no minor accomplishment when being compared to your peers.

The great thing about the 'Mars' rhythm is that any unit marching to it seems somehow alien and menacing - think the 'Darth Vader' theme from Star Wars for a more contemporary equivalent. And, that's just the sort of thing you want your military to be in practice. It worked especially well on a gravel covered drill field, where the "crunch" of the gravel under the hundred odd boots of the platoon provided an accompaniment for the "melody" provided by the side drums.

None of the officers brought in by my commanding officer to "Come and watch Stibal's platoon march this afternoon" were able to put their finger on what we were doing. And, when we would drill alone (with a body of troops that had trained to deal with 5/4 time from the very beginning), the difference/oddity of what we were doing was not apparent. Further proof that instrumental music is on the decline in America, I guess.

By the end of my final training cycle with the unit (I had a half-year to run out on my draft commitment after my time in RVN, and after Drill Instructor's School, I worked for three training cycles before separation), the unit CO had caught on to what I was trying to do. At that point, he wanted the entire company to work up the 5/4 march, the better to screw with the rest of the battalion at the massed graduation exercises at the end of a cycle. I wasn't around to see how that came out, but I hope that he succeeded admirably.

At the end, I was agitating (mostly in jest) for traditional uniforms for the "music" in our unit, but with little hope of success. You can see this "almost dead here in America" trend with our Marine Band, where the bandsmen/women wear a reversed version of the Marine dress uniform. The rank and file Marines wear red over blue uniforms, while the band wears the traditional blue over red coats by which they are known. (Some European militaries still have this, as well as the "wings" on the shoulders of their bandsmen.)

The only problem that we faced, as we chewed this over one day at lunch, was that the Army dress uniform equivalent would have been green over black (black coats, pants and hats, with green trim - certainly reminiscent of some of the boys of Nazi Germany). Not the most appealing color scheme, and one not likely to obtain approval. Tradition only went so far...

 

[Groovekiller]

Curator Ignace de Keyser showed me the seven belled Adolphe sax horns in the basement of the Belgian museum in Brussels. I actually got to hold Sax's pre-saxophone bass clarinet, which is in spectacularly good condition.

Adolphe Edouard Sax, the son of the inventor, made a valve trombone with 13 bells.

 

[pete]

Back in the day when every European infantry regiment (and many American ones) had its own "music" in the form of a regimental band, there was a great call for musical instruments that would perform well in an outdoor situation. (Marching in the pre- and early-railroad days was the main method of deployment, and regimental bands were used to regulate the step of the troops when on route, as well as for "bragging rights" with other regiments.)

Numerous instruments were invented or "improved" with this use in mind; the saxophone was only the most comprehensive effort that "took" - similar efforts were made with brass instruments and percussion as well. These multi-bell horns were all part of that effort. Playing outdoors in those days was no different than today - soft and subtle was not the best way to ensure that the sound would carry when it was supposed to.

If you're a fan of American Civil War-Era instruments, a lot of horns from that era had bells that point over the shoulder: band in front, soldiers in rear.

(Insert obvious joke about the band being cannon fodder.)

I went to a concert with these, once, and they played a piece with the bells facing out toward the audience, just for kicks. Massive sound. Interesting, in a way, because the cornets didn't have as much carrying power as the trombones/other mid to low brass: the bells pointed in opposing directions.

 

[SOTSDO]

Same same in the French Imperial Army, where the trombones had serpent heads facing back towards the fantasins. Of course, they used to march with bassoon players busily tooting away on their instruments, suspended from the buttonholes of their coats the while.

At least the Turkish music (the "jingling Johnny" thing that looks like a glockenspiel but is actually a bunch of bells hung on a standard) never made it here. I've heard from some former German military musicians who said that it was hell to play with one of those things jangling away in the front line.