Techniques & Procedure for Tuning a Clarinet

Techniques & Procedure for Tuning a Clarinet
Hi! My name is Leslie Burnick and I’m speaking on behalf of expertvillage.com. I’m going to talk to you about, a little bit about tuning of the clarinet and also other accessories that you may want to get as you become more advanced. The clarinet is tuned to itself so generally there is not really much you have to do like you would have to tune a guitar or tune a piano. When you are playing with a group you do need to tune together with the group to make sure everyone’s pitch matches and you are all playing in unison together. Just one of the accessories that you may want to get is actually a tuner. And again they come in all different models, this is just the type I have with a tuner, you can set the tuner to actually play whatever pitch you want and this particular pitch is a B flat so this would be the pitch that would often be tuned and you would just see if you match the pitch with the tuner. So this is just a handy thing to have as you become more advanced. Some of the other things that you may want to have is a metronome. This is the old fashioned kind of metronome, you probably have seen this on your grandmother’s piano or something and you simply would be setting this to however speed you want and this is used to keep a steady rhythm as you are practicing and you can set that. This is just kind of a moderate speed. You can set this… much faster and of course there is all kinds of settings in between and then you can have it very slow. Now these metronomes are fairly accurate, however as with everything we now have a better technology so now we have electronic metronomes, which again this is something you do not have to have but it is a nice thing to have and metronomes are generally used when you are practicing and again you would turn that on, you can set whatever speed you want. If you want to go slower and again you can set it for all different kind of time signatures that you would be dealing with so that is a nice thing to have. Some other things you may want to have as you are learning to play the clarinet, it is a kind of handy to have a clarinet stand again the clarinet just fits right over this. This would be on the floor and then it is just a way to hold the clarinet, as you want to leave the room or something like that. So that is a nice thing to have. With the clarinet most of the weight of the clarinet is on your right thumb. Your thumb may get tired or sore. They have all different kinds of little thumb pads that you can get to put on the back of the thumb rest. This is just a little thumb pad that I have, but they come in all different styles and colors and again it just makes a little bit more comfortable when you have all the weight of the clarinet on your thumb. Another thing that would be nice to have is a small screwdriver. The screwdrivers come in all different sizes. In general you are going to want, may be a couple of different kinds, may be one that is very small and one that is little bit bigger that would just help. If you see a screw that has come loose, you do not want to go around and tighten all the screws because you could actually freeze up the keys where they do not even work anymore. So only if you see one coming out, which you just gently tighten it to right where it stops, again you do not want to over tighten. One other thing that has become popular in the last few years is actually an neck strap for the clarinet. Again this is just one particular brand of a neck strap and this just helps to support the clarinet. If you are a young child and the clarinet just feels too heavy, this helps through the weight or of if you have other issues that would, may be necessitate having a little bit of help in the support, a neck strap is a nice thing to have.