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Here's An Interesting One

pete

Brassica Oleracea
Staff member
Administrator
http://www.pamelasmusic.co.uk/images/Forsale/wind/clarinets/Cb034case.jpg

Advertised as "Cased pair of vintage F. Buisson clarinets. Sax fingering £295."

While I don't pretend to know that much about vintage clarinets, these look like Albert System horns, to me, but with plateau keywork. However, looking at the Clarinet BB, I see that there has been some discussion about an identical horn that suggests that this really is a clarinet with sax fingerings ....
 
Dealer descriptions can be - ahem - "vague". The "Albert" system has been obsolete for well over ninety years by this point, and those familiar with it are

The lower joint is clearly just "Albert" system, pure and simple. There may be a patent C# linkage there, but nothing like the sax fingerings for the lower end. It also appears that there is no low Eb (which would correspond to the sax's low Bb

On the upper joint, there is a curious linkage showing on the "inside" of the horn (i.e., where the palm of the left hand would normally be located). However, this does not appear to connect to the "finger hole" plates in any way.

In any event, the whole idea of a "saxophone fingering clarinet" seems to be a non-starter, right out of the gate. After all, the clarinet overblows to the twelfth (as any clarinet player should be able to figure out without too much thinking). The amount of key work to deal with this by bringing it in line with saxophone fingering would be nigh on overwhelming. Just getting the left hand middle finger C hooked up to work properly in both registers would put a massive wad of nickel silver on the upper joint, key work that certainly doesn't appear here.

I think that what we are dealing with here is a custom version of plateau keywork, perhaps with a double set of plateaux (like that - original French plural - neat, huh?) to allow for "half holing" the LH #1.
 
Look out! Terry's playing the French card!

SOTSDO said:
The "Albert" system has been obsolete for well over ninety years by this point, and those familiar with it are
... Obsolete? :D

Whenever I hear of a clarinet with "saxophone fingerings," I tend to immediately think "Albert System," primarily because I could see how people could be confused by it: you've got those roller keys 'n' stuff. It looks saxophonish.

I am (well) aware of the interesting keywork system that was designed by Charles Houvenaghel for the saxophone: the Rationale System. One of the interesting things about that system is that there was "... a special coupling mechanism which enables the player to lower the pitch in the left hand key bank one semitone by depressing the first, second or third finger of the right hand" (quoting Leblanc). I could envision an even more complex system on a clarinet that could be activated by pressing the octave key to shift the keywork so you could maintain the same fingering in any octave. That'd be WAY complex, though.

It's also a little illogical to say that this clarinet has "saxophone fingering" because ... well, I don't know of a sax that can play 8vb :TrebleClef::Line1:. Clarinets can. I can't imagine the amount of additional keywork it'd take to extend a Bb soprano sax to that (well, I really can, but I'm "different"). I wonder what it would take to make a clarinet that has the same keyed range as a soprano sax, i.e. :TrebleClef::spaceb: to 8va :TrebleClef::Line5: (I've gotta add some sharps and flats to my notehead smilies). If anyone knows of a clarinet like that, I'd enjoy seeing it!
 
Obsolete!

I recall a skinny young lad showing up for his first contracted music lesson at the local music mill back in 1960, with his hand-me-down Albert system bass clarinet, only to be told that there weren't any instructors familiar with "that type of horn" available. And, this with the Rubank method's prominent display of an Albert clarinet (the wooden, non-skinny, non-metal one), to boot!

In the end, my grandfather Wilhelm (former Bavarian Army brigadier, and professional musician product of the early 1900's) taught me how to play the "funny clarinet", and later on crossed me over to the dark (i.e., Boehm) side. So, when all was said and done, I ended up the better for the experience.

I'm a bit rusty these days (when I play clarinet, it's either the Boehm or the Oehler, not one of my Albert horns), but the facility always comes back after a day or two. And, I always say that if anyone can get along on both the sax and Boehm clarinet, then they should be able to master the Albert (and, for that matter, the Oehler) system key work as well.

Bassoon? Well, that is akin to a black art. I still have major league issues with the little finger keys on the long joint, after playing one on and off for about the past (sigh) fifty years...
 
I've been contemplating learning the albert system, for both the fun and the "added versatility" to my experience. I was looking at some old ones (i.e. late 1880s-ish) for possible repair plus everything else, I just don't quite know if it's worth my time yet. (anyone else care to share their vague opinions on my vague question/ponderings?)
It's either that or I go grab a nice old bassoon somewhere.
I always use the one-month rule for these kinds of decisions.
 
Why not. They are interesting instruments and wonderful pieces of art if you decide they are not to your liking. I purchased a lovely Buescher TruTone silver clarinet to try it out. Unfortunately the tech who is replating and overhauling it was hospitalized for many years. He's back now and working to finish it by March. I just wanna take it for a run. :cool:
 
Bassoon is not for the light of heart, unless one happens to fall into your lap free/gratis. If it arrives in that fashion, you have the luxury to approach it on your own terms without feeling as if you have to be playing it.

One of the greatest problems is with the embouchure. While it is a woodwind instrument (at least some claim it is), and the sound producing mechanism is placed in your mouth, it uses quite a few different muscle sets than does the clarinet and the saxophone. Without daily practice, these muscles don't get the kind of workout that enable them to keep up their tone.

Iffen I was keen to bring up my bassoon skills, I'd be working at it for a solid half hour each day, mostly long tones (to ensure stability) with some technique at the end of same. This would be in addition to any other practice on other horns.

But, steel yourself for sticker shock. And then for the bizarro fingerings that you occasionally have to force-fit into your mind, fingerings that are often at odds with every other horn that you have used in the past.

And, get yerself a copy of Weissenborn's method, right quick...
 
When I got to tour the US with Jaco Pastorius in 1982, we used the best of the best musicians in the world. In Los Angeles, we had Gene Cipriano, Bill Reichenbach, Chuck & Bobby Findlay, and Snooky Young. The lead alto player Andy (?) played an Albert system clarinet and a piccolo with a Louis Lot headjoint. I was amazed.

Other Albert System players - Jimmy Dorsey, Edmond Hall (check HIM out on Youtube!), and Willie Humphries from the old Preservation Hall jazz band. All three had flawless, world class technique.
 
SOTSDO, thanks for sharing your take on it. Given the fact that I work out of the house for now, practice time wouldn't be an issue for me, the thing that freaks me out a little is the fingerings. Embouchure, I'd be able to work with that. But I just wonder if I'll start to confuse one fingering for another from horn to horn, my brain just happens to work like that sometimes. Same with the albert system clarinet.
But, if the fingerings are as bizarre as you said, perhaps it wouldn't be an issue, as there are few similarities to confuse...?
Perhaps I should wander deeper in to the bassoon section of the forums.
[/end structureless train of thought]
 
The pure fingerings aren't all that hard to deal with; it's the covering of "tuning" keys in an often illogical fashion that is what will trip you up.

Put another way, on the clarinet there are but four semi tones (G, G#, A, A#) that are routinely used below the altissimo that add "resonance" keys to the mix. (And, yes, I know that some go further than that in search of perfection with the lower notes - I'm talking about the mainstream here, not the tributary branches.)

On the bassoon, depending on whose fingering chart you adhere to, these resonance fingerings number almost as many are their are fingerings. Much more memory effort required to keep it all sorted out, and much harder for an adult to memorize.

I came to the bassoon by the back door, picking it up during summer band when there were none in attendance. After a year or two, working with a fingering chart and a few hints from a former band director (who got fabulously wealthy through his investments in Sintex, the maker of the first legal birth control pill here in the US), I managed well enough.

However, one thing that I never adequately implanted into my thick head was the note names associated with the bass clef note heads. Instead, I played (and, to a great extent, still play) the bassoon by the "Push the button, monkey!" approach.

So, when I see a note head on the second line from the bottom in the bass clef, I think "(w) xxx-xoo-o" rather than "B". Cumbersome, but the sort of approach you would expect from a treble clef-reading kid who had no teacher to help him along when he worked through the basics.

As a result, my bass clef reading skills were somewhat limited. I had the same sort of system for playing bass clarinet parts in bass clef. (Unfortunately, my grandfather only taught me what I needed to play band parts, even though he was fluent in both.) And, when tenor clef crops up, it's time to start making notes in the part.

The moral of the story is, learn how to read bass clef...

My bass clef epiphany came when I watched my son (who was an accomplished bassoonist up to the point that his semi-pro hockey career got in the way) run a few scales on my newly overhauled bassoon. At that point, I noticed the correspondence between the "holes" on the bassoon and the chalumeau register fingerings on the clarinet. That made it a lot easier to figure out the bass clef.
 
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Thanks again!
I understand what you're talking about, it makes a little more sense (the bassoon fingering issue) to me now. I'm wondering if it's too late to try to memorize all that, but like I said, I'm thinking about it very thoroughly and slowly.
I learned to read bass clef years and years ago, and have really been bringing it back up to the surface with the bass clarinet (it really, really helps) lately, so that's the easy part.
I too need to get in to the "B vs. xxx-xoo-o" habit, I've been slacking on that for far too long now.
I know, I'm stalling, but so much information, so little time, so few brain cells.
 
One final thing to note is that if you get a pre-WWII instrument (and, if it's Dolnet, pre-1970), it might be HIGH PITCH or something else. Today's tuning standards are low pitch A=440hz or A=442hz, if you happen to be in an orchestral setting.

The end-all, be-all is that if the horn is high pitch or one of the other interesting pitches that were available in the 19th century and earlier, you will probably not be able to play in tune with a modern instrument -- and your horn cannot be made to play in tune. The only exceptions to this rule would be if the intonation standard is relatively close to modern, like the French Standard of A=435hz or the orchestral standard of A=442hz. Those can be made to play in tune if you have a good enough ear. High pitch was generally A=457hz and that's almost a half-step. You can't lip that up.

So, if it's pre-WWII, make sure that either the horn's stamped "LP," "L," or "Low Pitch" or you test it with a digital tuner or something else that's modern -- and don't test just one note, check 'em all.
 
Thanks, Pete! I never thought of that. All my horns (even the '28 Selmer) are, according to my tuna, indeed LP.

What about the factor of "blown out" horns that keep getting sharper with age, no matter if the horn is originally, out of the factory, LP or HP, you can't tell that until you get a tuner I'm sure. Or is that simply an exaggerated fable that only happens if a horn is played to it's death, year after year?
 
What about the factor of "blown out" horns that keep getting sharper with age
Such instruments are indeed a threat to you and those around you, and must be disposed of properly. I have a degree in Advanced Instrument Disposal (AID) and offer this service to WOOF members for a modest fee. :cool:
 
I have a few acquaintances at work who enjoy going out to the desert and shooting inanimate objects.

"This is your clarinet. This is your clarinet being shot with 5 different shotguns at the same time. Any questions?"

However, I think that both PJ and Terry might have access to heavier weaponry.
 
Does a piccolo flute count as heavier weaponry?
 
I've gotten rid of almost all of the weaponry around our house. No room for a tank (or even a halftrack), and the ammunition storage is a bear.

I do retain an old, family favorite, the Mauser "broom-handle" 9mm pistol in its shoulder stock holster. It was Grandpa Wilhelm's personal choice during World War I (he had a low opinion of the P.'08, the infamous Luger; something about the toggle bolt action, and ranking officers in the Bavarian service could choose their own poison), but even in carbine configuration, it's only a marginal weapon at best. Looks cool as hell, though.

The only effective weapon to keep around the house is a sawn- (or, if you prefer, 'sawed-') off shotgun with double aught shot. When I have to shoot at something in the dark, I prefer to use something with a high probability of scoring a hit.
 
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