Mar 29, 2014.
This is for newbies and Bbclarinet to bass clarinet switchers. Iam an old man, and have been playingclarinet 60 years or more. I am retiredelectrical engineer(20 years) and now a duffer musician. Mt first job 63 years ago was in a repairshop fixing band instruments. I stillhave many of my 60 year old tools. I nowplay clarinet (now mostly 2nd Bassoonparts transposed to bass clarinet) in my local small town symphony. Most all of our players have music degreesbut make a living with day jobs. I usedto play Bb and A clarinet in symphony, but there is a time in life when thefingers slow and eyes and ears loose their previous functionality, I now play bass clarinet because there aremore white notes and we have a real good first Bassoon player. I transpose a lot of Bassoon parts to Bassclarinet using Finale.
At any rate I bought an oldbeat up bass clarinet a few years ago ina local pawn shop, It has a "HubertBrothers" stamp on which is not recognizable by any one. I think it was built by Malerne in Paris. Anyway after3 weeks of re-padding, corking and drilling out rusted and frozen hinge rodsthe thing became playable. Now we allknow that pawn shop purchases are risky, particularly if the instrument is notworking. But after looking at the mechanicsof this beast, it appeared to be very nicely made, no cracks etc. so I bought for $500.
After playing beside my Solobassoon player for a few weeks I becamea bit excited about this old piece of junk. The scale (individual note pitches) on this instrument matches her$35,000 Heckel Bassoon just about perfectly all the way from low Eb to high C.
The only problem was that it seemedto squeak and not respond as it should. I was really at a loss as to what was happening. To make a long story short I found myfingers were bumping adjacent keys as I was playing because my hand positionover the keys was based on my 60 yeargrip on my Bb clarinet. It took me a fewweeks to solve the problem, I took aDremel grinding tool and narrowed the width of spatulas on a number ofkeys, I shortened the length of the Akey (throat tone) by maybe 3/8 of an inch. All of this helped considerably.
But the real clincher is/wasthat as I played the instrument my left hand was slanting up with respect tothe body of the bass clarinet. And theslanted fingers were hitting adjacent keys even after I had ground the keys tohave narrower spatulas. This soundscrazy, but I took a piece of string (dental floss) wrapped it around the base ofmy trigger finger, then tied that string to the clarinet (upper post on forkedEb key) which forces my left hand to stay more perpendicular to the bassclarinet.... Would you believe it? Nomore squeaks etc..The bass clarinet responds beautifully.
I pass this along cause ittook me quite a bit of time to figure it out, and it might save some newbieplayers some frustration.
Also, when I got this oldbass clarinet I had to buy a new case. The new cases sold are pretty generic and really do not secure theclarinet inside the case. To solve thisproblem, I went to the hardware store and got a scrap piece of this pinkpolyfoam insulation like they are using on new houses. It is about 1 inch thick. I cut pieces of this foam board that I gluedinto this generic case. Only the ends ofthe top and bottom joint of the bass clarinet are supported snugly in thecase. I very carefully adjusted theheight of these foam supports such that when the lid comes down, it gentlycloses all of the keys on the bass clarinet which gently keeps the pad seats closed when theinstrument is not in use.. I thencovered my work with black velvet from the fabric store.
I hope this may be useful tosomeone.
Bob Stiffler
This is for newbies and Bbclarinet to bass clarinet switchers. Iam an old man, and have been playingclarinet 60 years or more. I am retiredelectrical engineer(20 years) and now a duffer musician. Mt first job 63 years ago was in a repairshop fixing band instruments. I stillhave many of my 60 year old tools. I nowplay clarinet (now mostly 2nd Bassoonparts transposed to bass clarinet) in my local small town symphony. Most all of our players have music degreesbut make a living with day jobs. I usedto play Bb and A clarinet in symphony, but there is a time in life when thefingers slow and eyes and ears loose their previous functionality, I now play bass clarinet because there aremore white notes and we have a real good first Bassoon player. I transpose a lot of Bassoon parts to Bassclarinet using Finale.
At any rate I bought an oldbeat up bass clarinet a few years ago ina local pawn shop, It has a "HubertBrothers" stamp on which is not recognizable by any one. I think it was built by Malerne in Paris. Anyway after3 weeks of re-padding, corking and drilling out rusted and frozen hinge rodsthe thing became playable. Now we allknow that pawn shop purchases are risky, particularly if the instrument is notworking. But after looking at the mechanicsof this beast, it appeared to be very nicely made, no cracks etc. so I bought for $500.
After playing beside my Solobassoon player for a few weeks I becamea bit excited about this old piece of junk. The scale (individual note pitches) on this instrument matches her$35,000 Heckel Bassoon just about perfectly all the way from low Eb to high C.
The only problem was that it seemedto squeak and not respond as it should. I was really at a loss as to what was happening. To make a long story short I found myfingers were bumping adjacent keys as I was playing because my hand positionover the keys was based on my 60 yeargrip on my Bb clarinet. It took me a fewweeks to solve the problem, I took aDremel grinding tool and narrowed the width of spatulas on a number ofkeys, I shortened the length of the Akey (throat tone) by maybe 3/8 of an inch. All of this helped considerably.
But the real clincher is/wasthat as I played the instrument my left hand was slanting up with respect tothe body of the bass clarinet. And theslanted fingers were hitting adjacent keys even after I had ground the keys tohave narrower spatulas. This soundscrazy, but I took a piece of string (dental floss) wrapped it around the base ofmy trigger finger, then tied that string to the clarinet (upper post on forkedEb key) which forces my left hand to stay more perpendicular to the bassclarinet.... Would you believe it? Nomore squeaks etc..The bass clarinet responds beautifully.
I pass this along cause ittook me quite a bit of time to figure it out, and it might save some newbieplayers some frustration.
Also, when I got this oldbass clarinet I had to buy a new case. The new cases sold are pretty generic and really do not secure theclarinet inside the case. To solve thisproblem, I went to the hardware store and got a scrap piece of this pinkpolyfoam insulation like they are using on new houses. It is about 1 inch thick. I cut pieces of this foam board that I gluedinto this generic case. Only the ends ofthe top and bottom joint of the bass clarinet are supported snugly in thecase. I very carefully adjusted theheight of these foam supports such that when the lid comes down, it gentlycloses all of the keys on the bass clarinet which gently keeps the pad seats closed when theinstrument is not in use.. I thencovered my work with black velvet from the fabric store.
I hope this may be useful tosomeone.
Bob Stiffler