|
The alto clarinet is a wind instrument of the clarinet family. A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified for the purpose of making Music. A wind instrument is a Musical instrument that contains some type of Resonator (usually a tube in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing Types of woodwind instruments See also List of woodwind instruments Single-reed instruments use a reed, which is a thin cut A single-reed instrument is a Woodwind instrument that uses only one reed to produce sound In Music, the range of a Musical instrument is the distance from the lowest to the highest pitch it can play A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified for the purpose of making Music. The clarinet is a Musical instrument in the Woodwind family The name derives from adding the suffix -et meaning little to the Italian word The bass clarinet is a Musical instrument of the Clarinet family The contra-alto clarinet is a large low-sounding Musical instrument of the Clarinet family A wind instrument is a Musical instrument that contains some type of Resonator (usually a tube in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified for the purpose of making Music. The clarinet is a Musical instrument in the Woodwind family The name derives from adding the suffix -et meaning little to the Italian word It is a transposing instrument usually pitched in the key of E♭, though instruments in F (and in the 19th century, E) have been made. A transposing instrument is a musical instrument for which written notes are played at a pitch different from concert pitch, which a non-transpositing instrument such as a It is sometimes known as a tenor clarinet; this name especially is applied to the instrument in F. In size it lies between the soprano clarinet and the bass clarinet, to which it bears a greater resemblance in that it typically has a straight body (made of Grenadilla or other wood, hard rubber, or plastic), but a curved neck and bell made of metal. The soprano clarinets are a sub- family of the Clarinet family. The bass clarinet is a Musical instrument of the Clarinet family Grenadilla (or other similar spellings is a name given to a number of different Woods all of them strong and dense Wood is hard fibrous lignified structural tissue produced as secondary Xylem in the stems of Woody plants notably trees but also shrubs Plastic is the general common term for a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic organic solid materials suitable for the manufacture of industrial products All-metal alto clarinets also exist. In appearance it strongly resembles the basset horn, but usually differs in three respects: it is pitched in E♭, it lacks an extended lower range, and it has a wider bore than most basset horns. The basset horn or tenor clarinet (sometimes written basset-horn) is a Musical instrument, a member of the Clarinet family
The keys of the alto clarinet are similar to the keys on smaller clarinets, and are played with virtually identical fingerings. The alto clarinet, however, usually has one key not found on most soprano clarinets, which allows it to reach a low (written) E♭. The range of the alto clarinet is from the G♭ in the second octave below middle C (i. e. bottom line of the bass clef) to the middle of the second octave above middle C. A clef (from the French for "key" is a musical symbol used to indicate the pitch of written notes.
Invention of the alto clarinet has been attributed to Iwan Müller and to Heinrich Grenser. Ivan Mueller (b 1786 Reval, Estonia - d 1854 Bückeburg - correctly spelled Iwan Müller was a Clarinetist and inventor Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Grenser ( 5 March 1764 &ndash 12 December 1813) was a German Musical instrument maker [1] It may have been invented independently in America; the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a bassoon-shaped alto clarinet in E♭, cataloged as an "alto clarion", attributed to an anonymous American maker circa 1820. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an art museum located on the eastern edge of Central Park, along what is known as Museum Mile in New York City, [2] This instrument bears a strong resemblance to the "patent clarions" (bass clarinets) made from about 1810 by George Catlin of Hartford, Connecticut and his apprentices. [3] Later, back in Europe, Adolphe Sax made notable improvements to the alto clarinet. Antoine-Joseph 'Adolphe' Sax (November 6 1814 &ndash February 4 1894 was a Belgian Musical instrument designer and Musician ( Clarinetist [4]
Use in musical ensembles
The alto clarinet has not been commonly used in orchestral scoring. (An important exception is Igor Stravinsky's Threni. Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (Игорь Фёдорович Стравинский) ( &ndash 6 April 1971 was a Russian born Composer, considered by many to [5]) It is used mostly in concert band. A concert band, also called wind band, symphonic band, symphonic winds, wind orchestra, wind symphony, or wind ensemble It also plays an important role in clarinet choirs. A few jazz musicians, Hamiet Bluiett, Vinny Golia, J. D. Parran, Petr Kroutil, Joe Lovano and Gianluigi Trovesi among them, have played the alto clarinet. Hamiet Bluiett (b Brooklyn (or Lovejoy Illinois, September 16, 1940) is an American jazz saxophonist clarinetist and composer Vinny Golia (b The Bronx, New York City, New York, March 1, 1946) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist specializing J D Parran is an American multi-woodwind player, educator and composer specializing in Jazz and free improvised music. Petr Kroutil (b January 31, 1973, Prague, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech Musician and Actor. Joseph Salvatore Lovano (born 29 December 1952 in Cleveland Ohio) is a Post bop Jazz Saxophonist, alto clarinetist Gianluigi Trovesi (born in 1944) is an Italian Jazz Saxophonist, Clarinetist and Composer. In his Treatise on Instrumentation, Hector Berlioz said that while the alto clarinet has a distinctive sound, "unfortunately it is not to be found in a well constituted orchestra. Grand Traité d’Instrumentation et d’Orchestration Modernes, abbreviated in English as the Treatise on Instrumentation (sometimes Treatise on Orchestration "
Abandonment in some ensembles
Since at least the late 1940s, there has been discussion over whether the alto clarinet could or should be eliminated from the standard wind band. The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949 Events and trends The 1940s was a period between the radical 1930s and the conservative 1950s which also leads the period to be [6] The arguments usually used include its relatively low volume, unremarkable tone, and the fact that its part is nearly always doubled by other instruments. (One notable exception is an alto clarinet solo in Percy Grainger's famous piece Lincolnshire Posy. George Percy Grainger (8 July 1882&ndash20 February 1961 was an Australian born Composer, Pianist and champion of the Saxophone and the Lincolnshire Posy is a symphonic piece by Percy Aldridge Grainger, composed in 1937 for the American Bandmasters Association. ) Many junior high school and high school bands have ceased using the instrument for these reasons. High school is the name used in some parts of the world (in particular Scotland, North America and Australia) to describe an institution A concert band, also called wind band, symphonic band, symphonic winds, wind orchestra, wind symphony, or wind ensemble
References
- ^ Rendall, F. Geoffrey (1957). The Clarinet (Second Revised Edition). Ernest Benn, 145-6.
- ^ Libin, Laurence (1995). "Alto Clarion". The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin: 53. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- ^ Eliason, Robert E. (1983). "George Catlin, Hartford Musical Instrument Maker (Part 2)". Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 9: 21-52.
- ^ Shackleton, Nicholas. "The development of the clarinet". In Lawson (ed. ), Colin (1995). The Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 32.
- ^ Pauli, Hansjörg (Autumn, 1958). "On Strawinsky's 'Threni'". Tempo New Ser. , No. 49. : 16-17+21-33.
- ^ Sawhill, Clarence E. "The Problem of the Alto Clarinet" and Rohner, Traugott. "Shall We Eliminate the Alto Clarinet?". In (1972) Woodwind Anthology. Evanston, IL: The Instrumentalist, 208-212. (Both reprinted from The Instrumentalist, 1948. )
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic