Fingerings

7 5 8

by joyceholt

by joyceholt

On Monday my 11-year-old grandson played clarinet in his first concert. The Beginning Band did fine on tempo, and their music... well, it approximated what the composer intended. You could tell that most of them, like my grandson, had first picked up their instruments only two months earlier. Good job, considering.

The clarinet, which produces music by air blowing across a vibrating reed then down the tube, wasn't his first wind instrument. Last evening, when he spotted my basket of wood and plastic soprano recorders, he plucked one out and piped a familiar tune.

I've been playing recorder since I was his age, and up until the pandemic played in a for-fun medieval ensemble. My fingers have decent muscle memory and can dance over the holes without much thought.

"Did you have to learn new fingering on the clarinet?" I asked him.

He nodded.

I know that problem. I haven't mastered the different fingering patterns for my bagpipe practice chanter (another reed instrument) or tin whistles. End-blown tin whistles, willow whistles, and recorders are all fipple flutes, the "fipple" being the end piece that channels air past a sharp edge. Even my replica Viking-era sheep-bone flute has a fipple mouthpiece. (Think of the shape of a referee's whistle, which only lacks the tube of a musical instrument.)

Wind instruments produce different tones depending on the length of their tube-like bodies. Instruments with fingering holes in essence change their length when holes are left open. The more holes closed, the longer the resonating chamber, the lower the note produced.

Recorders and clarinets and others have holes drilled in precise positions to produce a major scale. (Think "do-re-mi...")

My sheep-bone flute, however, had holes drilled at equally spaced intervals, just like grave finds in Scandinavia. It did not produce a major scale. After playing around with it a while, I learned to leave the bottom hole open. Playing up from there gave me a minor scale. (Think of Sesame Street's Count singing "vun, two, tree, four, five, seex, seven, eight... Eight beautiful notes!")

(Well, well! My favorite old Norwegian folk tunes all use the minor scale!)

There's more than one way to modulate the pitch of a wind instrument besides using open or closed holes to vary the length of the tube. A simple bugle can produce different notes by changing the tautness of lips on the mouthpiece. A trumpet is similar to a bugle but uses valves to direct the airflow through side tubes, lengthening the overall tube and producing lower notes.

Trombones have a sliding section to the tube. The trombonist pushes the slide away to lengthen the tube and produce lower notes, draws it back in to shorten and raise the pitch.

My oldest grandson, who previously played trombone in jazz band, changed instruments the same time his brother took up clarinet. Last Wednesday in the high school concert we saw our senior labor at his new instrument. Labor, literally. This athletic young man had to draw breath with each note and, with obvious exertion, blow like the North Wind into the biggest tube in the band.

The tuba.

prompt: tube