Right-handed clarinet fingering chart. Click for larger.

Left-handed saxophone fingering chart.

Clearly, the time has come to update these sad old charts, and the Fingering Diagram Builder makes it fast, easy, and, dare I say it?—fun. I’ll show you how it’s done, using three particularly cool features (if I do say so myself) of the FDB. We will take a look at the FDB’s custom styles, custom keywork presets, and Dropbox integration.

Custom styles

For now, my plan is just to create enough diagrams to replace the ones in these old fingering charts—just the fingerings I figure Kirk must have used. But I don’t think Rahsaan would want me limiting myself to just those fingerings in the future. I’d better set up this project in such a way that I can come back later with new one-handed fingerings I’ve discovered, and add them to the charts with a minimum of fuss.

The problem is that, what with the FDB’s highly customizable diagrams, I may not remember tomorrow whether the ones I made today have lines that are “medium” or “thick” or “heavy,” or whether I sized them “small” or “tiny,” or whether I was saving the diagrams as .PNG files for onscreen use or .TIF files for better printed results. The FDB does, of course, remember my current settings between sessions all on its own, but I like to work on several projects at once (Rahsaan would approve, I think) and I’ll use the FDB’s “custom styles”  to keep each project’s configuraton a click away. Here’s how:

1. First I will set up things just the way I want them. Currently, settings that can be saved as part of a custom style are: diagram size, line thickness, color, file naming procedure (let the FDB name them automatically, or specify each filename myself), file format, save-to location (my computer or my Dropbox), and, if I’m using Dropbox, which folder to save the files in.
2. Once everything is just right, I’ll click over to the “Custom styles” tab in the FDB’s menu to review my choices, and select which ones I want to save.
   
   As you can see, I’ve set the diagrams to be small, heavy-lined, colored in gray, .PNG-formatted, and saved to Dropbox in a folder called “kirkismyhero.” I have un-checked the box for “File naming,” since I don’t want the FDB to remember that for my purposes on this project—I’ll just go ahead and use whichever system I’m already using that day.
3. I’ll type in a name (“kirk project”) for my custom style, and click the “Save current settings” button (or press Enter).
   
   I’m done—that’s all there is to it. In the future, whenever I want to create more diagrams like the ones I’m making today, I can just go to the “Custom styles” tab and click on “kirk project.”
   

The Keywork details tab and custom keywork presets

Okay, now it’s time to get down to business. I need to create diagrams showing only the saxophone keys pressed with fingers of the left hand, and only the keys of the clarinet’s upper joint (which, in this case, will be played with the right hand).

The saxophone diagram already has three built-in presets: one for a “standard” saxophone, one for a baritone with a low A key, and one for a soprano with a high G key. I’m going to add a custom preset, which shows only the keys I need. Tricky, right? Nope.

1. I’ll start with the saxophone, by making sure I’ve chosen the saxophone diagram from the dropdown list near the top of the menu.
   
2. Then I’ll click over to the “Keywork” tab, and from there click the “Keywork details” tab. This is where I can pick which keys I want visible.
   
   By default, on the saxophone’s “standard” preset, the only keys set to appear all the time are the main keys belonging to the index, middle, and ring fingers, plus a little horizontal separator between the hands. You can find each of these in the “Keywork details” list, marked as “always.” (There are other keys marked as “always,” but they are in little indented groups, and the group’s setting overrides the individual key.) I can hide those keys by marking them as either “as needed” or “never.” “As needed” means they will still show when I hover the mouse over the diagram (they are always visible in gray on touch-screen iDevices), but they won’t be part of finished diagrams unless I click on them. “Never” means they won’t appear even when I hover. I’ll set them to “as needed” just in case for some reason I want to use one of those keys later on. The keys I need to set to “as needed” are: Separator, Right first finger, Right second finger, and Right third finger.
   
   Now the diagram looks like this:
   
   And when I hover, I can see all the “as needed” keys:
   
3. Now I just need to click over to the “Custom presets” tab, enter a name for the preset, and save it.
   
   When I want to use this preset in the future, I can choose it from the “Custom presets” tab, or from the presets dropdown list near the top of the menu. This preset will only show up when I have the saxophone diagram selected.
   

And the saxophone preset is ready to go. Another few clicks and the clarinet preset is ready, too.

Dropbox integration

Now I’m ready to start cranking out some diagrams, but I will need a good place to keep them organized. Sometimes I work on stuff from my laptop at home, other times I work on stuff on my desktop computer at work, and sometimes I even work a little from my smartphone. Dropbox provides a great way to have all of my current projects at hand on whatever device I’m using, with zero fuss, for free. I’ve already created my account, but if you still need to create yours then head on over to Dropbox.com, get yourself situated, and then come on back.

With my Dropbox account set up, I’m ready to get going.

1. First I’ll click over to the “File options” tab. Under “Save images to,” I’ll click Dropbox, and when the sign-in form appears, I’ll enter the email address and password associated with my Dropbox account and click “Sign in.”
   
   Momentarily, I should be notified that I am “Signed into Dropbox as Bret Pimentel.” Unless your name also happens to be Bret Pimentel, this small detail may differ when you try it yourself.
2. Since I might like to get some feedback from friends on my fingering diagrams, I will check the “Use public folder” box.
   
3. Now I can just create and save as many diagrams as I want. Since they are being saved to Dropbox, they are immediately available on all my computers. And since I chose to use a Dropbox public folder, the FDB gives me a link each time I save a diagram, that I can copy and paste into an email or Tweet or whatever so that other people can see what I’m working on.
   

All done

Here are the finished fingering charts:

New and improved right-handed clarinet fingering chart. Click for larger.

New and improved left-handed saxophone fingering chart.

 Let me know what you’re making with the Fingering Diagram Builder!

Related posts:

1. Fingering diagram builder, version 0.2
2. Fingering Diagram Builder, version 0.4
3. Fingering diagram builder, version 0.3

Those of us who play modern band/orchestral woodwinds are familiar with a system in which, within a family of instruments, a notated pitch always corresponds to a certain fingering. No matter how large or small the instrument, the same fingering always corresponds to that same written pitch, even though the smaller instruments produce higher sounding pitches and the larger instruments produce lower sounding pitches. For example:

	E-flat clarinet	B-flat clarinet	A clarinet	Bass clarinet
Notated pitch
Fingering
Sounding pitch

This is convenient for clarinetists because, essentially, they only need to learn one set of fingerings to be (in that respect) prepared to play any instrument in the clarinet family. Note also that even the bass clarinet is notated in treble clef, as are its even lower cousins. All the major modern woodwind families (flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and saxophones) use this approach: consistent clefs, and consistent correspondence of notated pitch to fingering. The transposition is a function of the instrument’s size.

Because of the prevalence of this system in the Western woodwind tradition, it’s an understandable error to assume that the recorder family is notated in the same way. But recorders typically use a different system, in which each instrument is notated in concert pitch, and the fingerings change depending upon the instrument. Or, to be more precise, each instrument is notated in a sort of “concert pitch class,” since some of the recorders are notated as transposing by one or more octaves, but a notated C always produces a sounding C. Bass recorder and lower are notated in bass clef. Here are the most common ones:

	Descant (“soprano”) recorder	Treble (“alto”) recorder	Tenor recorder	Bass recorder
Notated pitch
Fingering
Sounding pitch

Recorder players must learn two sets of fingerings, one with the instrument’s lowest note being C (for descant and tenor recorders), and one with the instrument’s lowest note being F (for treble and bass recorders), and must be prepared to read in two clefs.

The reader who contacted me described a musical theater situation in which a part for treble recorder had been erroneously notated as if the recorder were a transposing instrument: the copyist treated the treble as a band/orchestral instrument “in F,” so the player had to use C fingerings to produce the correct pitches.

The reader asks:

Is this notation common practice in Broadway shows? It would seem counter-productive to me; it’s both incorrect notation for the alto recorder and also makes it more difficult to play the part on flute if necessary (as is surely often done). The only questionable benefit would be making it slightly easier for someone who had only played soprano recorder to pick up an alto.

I’d love to hear your experience and opinions on the matter!

I have seen it done both ways. My preference is that recorders are notated with the non-transposing system for the sake of consistency with the existing recorder tradition; it doesn’t make sense to me to put the burden of adaptation on those who have actually made the effort to learn to play recorders properly. But for the sake of accessibility, it might be wise to provide some kind of ossia or cue notes, for recorder dabblers who either haven’t researched the instrument enough to know its tradition or haven’t spent the time in the woodshed to learn both sets of fingerings.

I hope that helps!

Related posts:

1. Understanding woodwind key nomenclature systems
2. Masato Honda plays recorder
3. The woodwind doubler as orchestral utility player

A few names that need mentioning for recent extra-awesome support and/or ideas are bassoonist Dave Wells (check out his high-quality and handsome bassoon fingering charts), saxophonist/doubler Evan Tate, saxophonist Bart Walters (who blogs over at Music Collective), pianist Jason Gray, and clarinetists Kellie Lignitz and Rachel Yoder (who included the FDB in their column in The Clarinet and on Clarinet Cache). You internet people sure are nice!

Check out version 0.4 of the Fingering Diagram Builder, or read on for a guide to what’s new and improved.

• Okay, okay, I’m finally giving up on my vertical-accordion-style menu, which I liked but which seemed to confuse people and which got unwieldy when you opened too many menus at once. The new tabbed menu is boring and vaguely corporate, but more familiar, and more usable on a variety of screen sizes.
• You can now save your own custom keywork presets: if you have an instrument with unusual keywork, you can set it up using the “Keywork details” tab, then click over to “Custom presets” and save it for future use.
  
• You can also save what I’m calling custom “styles.” The impetus for this was that I’ve had some fingering chart projects that I’ve returned to add fingerings to later but couldn’t recall all the details of the diagrams I had created previously: were they “tiny” or “small?” were the lines “thick” or “heavy?” and so forth. Now you can set things up they way you like them for an individual project, then save them using the “Custom styles” tab. I’m already finding the “Dropbox folder” setting to be a timesaver (you are using Dropbox, aren’t you? You should be).
  
• Note that both the custom keywork presets and the custom styles are saved to an individual browser, so if you switch computers or even web browsers, you won’t see your custom stuff. Maybe in a future version, but for now I’m trying to avoid fussing with logins and passwords and such.
• I’ve added a piano keyboard diagram, suitable for various educational purposes. You can decide how many keys it has, up to 88.
• The transverse simple-system flute fingering diagram now has a bunch of optional keys for historical or “Irish”-style flutes.
• The oboe fingering diagram now has the option of a thumbplate, if you are into that sort of thing.
• The saxophone high F-sharp key looks much nicer and more recognizable. The old one was designed to accommodate sopranos with a high G key, and that is still available, but the larger and sexier high F-sharp key is now turned on by default.
• I have repositioned the saxophone left hand palm keys into a little more conventional, and hopefully clear, configuration.
• The clarinet diagram now has an option for a right hand C-sharp/G-sharp trill, like the one on the Leblanc by Backun clarinets (and a few others).
• After repeatedly downloading diagrams for my own use and then shrinking them down in an image editor, I’ve added a new “teeny” size option. If you are making diagrams this small, you will probably want to set line thickness to “heavy,” and maybe create your diagram at a larger size first and then click “teeny” to shrink it.
  
• Several of you contacted me about a bug where if you saved images with custom filenames, and used the same filename more than once (like to overwrite one you had already downloaded), the original one would get downloaded again. This is fixed.
• Introducing .tif files in the previous update proved to be popular, but the much larger files occasionally caused problems on the backend that crashed the FDB. I believe this to be fixed now.
• All along, .png files were supposed to be (losslessly) compressed for smaller file sizes before download. At some point, that stopped working. It is now working again.
• Adding the ability to save custom keywork presets and custom styles led to a need for more flexible and capacious storage than the previous system that used browser cookies. Your stuff is now saved using your browser’s “local storage” protocol instead, if available. You won’t notice any difference. As with cookies, all your information is still stored on your own computer, not on a server.
• I’ve fixed a bug dealing with image offsets in .png files, which you possibly noticed if you tried to edit downloaded .pngs in a program like Gimp.
• I have made numerous other small bug fixes, stability and speed improvements, aesthetic and usability improvements for desktop web browsers, and aesthetic and usability improvements for iDevices. In all, it’s over 100 fixes, improvements, and new features by my count.

As always, I welcome your feedback, suggestions, and bug reports. I also really like it when people fill me in about the projects they use the FDB for.

Enjoy!

A reader emailed me to ask this question (edited):

I was wondering if you could give me some information on what kind of opportunities being a doubler has opened up for you. I am beginning to consider options for graduate school and am looking into multiple woodwinds degrees. Thanks!

I do consider myself to be at the beginning of a hopefully long career, but doubling has already given me some opportunities that I surely wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Doubling isn’t a career that typically leads to fame outside the music business, but within the industry many of the best and best-known doublers are working in Broadway pit orchestras, in the Los Angeles recording studios, or on the road with touring jazz or pop acts.

I haven’t had any of those jobs, nor do I anticipate pursuing any of them at this point. But here are a few things doubling has done for me:

Doubling gigs. These are gigs where I am actually hired to perform on multiple instruments. Most reasonably large cities in the US seem to have at least a few community or school musical theater productions with large enough budgets to pay a professional or semi-pro orchestra, and woodwind doublers are generally in demand (bonus points for double reed players or “low reeds” players). Doubling gigs can also include being hired as a local to play behind a touring show or artist who is passing through town, or being a sort of utility woodwind player for local orchestras, churches, and so forth. Often for me these have been sort of write-your-own-job-description situations, where I’m hired to play one instrument, and later re-hired because I’m able and willing to cover some other parts, too.

Non-doubling gigs. The best way to get gigs is by building a network of musicians who know and trust you. Doing doubling gigs has gotten me access to lots of different musical circles: classical, jazz, rock and pop, folk, and more. I always pass out business cards on a gig, listing the things that I can do. If a local rock band decides they need an oboist on their new track, they probably don’t know the principal oboist of the local symphony, but they do know me.

Private teaching. If you are looking to build a private studio, or to get a job teaching at a music store or private music school, versatility multiplies the number of potential students. To do this well, you will have to really know your stuff on each instrument (how well do you know the beginning method books? good solo competition pieces for high school students? etc.). I’ve had a number of jobs teaching at summer music camps and such. The camps often book me first, and then let me know which instrument I’m teaching once they have made some more phone calls and determined who else is available.

Academia. My main gig now is as a university music professor, at a smallish school where I was hired to handle all of the reed studios (oboe, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone). In many similar cases, a single-instrument player is hired, who does their best to teach the other instruments (sometimes very successfully, I should add). But my background on multiple instruments was a major advantage in getting noticed by the search committee. Some of my single-instrument-playing friends from graduate school, who were at least my equals in education and musicianship, weren’t fortunate enough to get hired right out of school. I believe that my doubling ability made me more attractive to potential employers.

General personal and musical enrichment. Not to get too warm and fuzzy, but some of the very real benefits of doubling haven’t been monetary in nature. As an undergraduate saxophone major, I rarely got to play Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart. And the bassoon majors rarely got to play jazz or rock. If you play both, the possibilities start to open up.

If you’re interested in multiple woodwinds degrees, be sure to check out my list of degree programs and my previous blog posts.

Related posts:

1. Reader email: multiple woodwinds degree or single-instrument degree?
2. University/conservatory degree programs in woodwind doubling
3. Brass doubling?

Visualize. If possible, spend time in the performance space before performance day. If not, imagine up a good representation of what the space is likely to look and “feel” like. Mentally walk through the entire performance, from your arrival at the venue to your departure. Include every detail you can, no matter how mundane. In your mind’s eye, see yourself entering the stage, taking a tuning note, making a reed adjustment, waiting for the audience to fall silent. Audiate the whole performance the way you want it to sound. Hear the last note reverberating in the hall, then see yourself taking a bow and leaving the stage.

I find this valuable because everything feels familiar on the night of the performance. Even if I get some of the details wrong or leave something out, I can deal with those things as minor glitches in an otherwise controlled experience, rather than seeing them as part of a flood of unanticipated events. It also gives me a chance to think through any logistical issues; I take notes and make a to-do list while I do this exercise.

Warm up intelligently. I like to keep practicing to a minimum on performance day when possible. It’s not likely that I will make significant improvements in my preparation at that point, and I want my mind clear and body rested. If I have an evening recital, I typically do a leisurely warmup in the morning and make semi-final reed decisions. I focus the warmup on tone production and tension-free technique.

I practice the performance repertoire as little as possible on recital day. If there are difficult technical passages that I am worried about, I make a point of not trying to play them up to tempo, but instead run through them in a very slow and controlled way, focusing on tone and expression. That keeps my final practicing positive and constructive, rather than causing me stress about potential failures.

Have a good, normal day. I don’t want to depend on recital day rituals or superstitions, but I do want to be in a good mood. I don’t eat a special breakfast, but I eat something that is a favorite among my typical breakfasts. I don’t wear new clothes, but I wear something that I feel good in. I don’t take the day off work, but I do carve out a non-working lunch hour. Small, ordinary pleasures are the order of the day.

I find that if I make too big a deal of performance day, I overthink and attach unwarranted weight to the event. Keeping things good but normal makes performing less stressful.

I would be curious to hear your advice for performance preparation (besides the hours of practice). Please share in the comments section if you feel inclined.

Related posts:

1. Recital 11/3/2008
2. New sound clips: Faculty woodwinds recital, Aug. 30, 2011
3. Faculty woodwinds recital, Aug. 31, 2010

He’s hoping his skills on multiple instruments will eventually land him commercial gigs or even a position playing in a pit for musical theater performances.

…

“The most important thing now is to find something unique about my playing that I can market in a positive way.”

Related posts:

1. Doublers in the news: Douglas Owens
2. Conrad Asklund on finding woodwind doublers
3. Peter Hilliard on contracting woodwind doublers

I use Google Alerts to keep track of lots of woodwind-related topics on the web. Most days they don’t turn up anything especially interesting, but this morning I awoke to an alert of a new patent, just filed by Rico. Check it out here. [UPDATE: The PDF appears to have been removed from Google Patents. Rico must have connections!] [UPDATE #2: I managed to retrieve a partial copy of it from my web browser cache. Here it is.] It appears to describe double-ended clarinet and saxophone reeds. Yes, you read that correctly.

I assumed at first that the filing of this patent must be some kind of odd business practice required by Rico’s legal department. Maybe Rico held a brainstorming session on new products, and patents got filed on every idea, no matter how ridiculous, just in case.

But, out of curiosity, I Googled some of the other patents referenced in the PDF. And one of the patents listed as related to “specialized adaptations to existing machinery” used in reed manufacture turned up something surprising. Check out the search results, for the patent number in the ricoreeds.com domain. [UPDATE: The single web document that previously showed up in this search appears to have been removed or otherwise secured. The document appears to be an archived email message, intended for internal use within Rico (located at the subdomain "intranet.ricoreeds.com", now inaccessible). I have retrieved the document from my web browser cache. The formatting is lost, but it is still legible. Read it here. I have removed the names of Rico employees.] Here is a summary, based on my best guesses from the document:

• “Duality” appears to be either a brand name or an internal code name for the double-tipped reeds.
• Conversions of some existing machines to produce double-tipped reeds seem to be in process already.
• “Duality” is due to launch (as in a new product release?) in “late 2012.”
• The email refers to 15 “units” in all, with 12 being converted. I don’t know if this represents all of Rico’s reedmaking machines; if so, it seems they are converting 80% of their production capacity to Duality, with 20% to continue producing “legacy” products. If this is case, Rico is betting big on the Duality reeds.

I’m not sure what to make of all this. Let me know what you think in the comments.

[BIG UPDATE: Rico has responded to my blog post with a "press release" on their Facebook page. Apparently somebody is working over the weekend. Check it out here!!]

Related posts:

1. More free reeds from Rico
2. Trade in your old reeds for new Ricos, part II
3. Not making your own double reeds

I’ve taught college-level woodwind methods courses for a few years now. This is a course primarily for instrumental music majors, who will go on to become school band or orchestra directors, and who need a crash course in the playing and pedagogy of each instrument that will be in their future ensembles. At the places I’ve taught, it means taking students from zero to playing a little bit of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone, all in one semester. It’s a semester-long sprint.

There are a handful of textbooks available for these types of courses, most of which I own, and none of which I use in class. I’m continually surprised by the material that is and isn’t covered in these books.

I try hard to keep my courses focused on core concepts, like position/posture, breath support, basic embouchure, voicing, and finger technique, and I try to keep those concepts as simple and clear as possible. I have students observe each other’s playing of these instruments, identify things that don’t look and/or sound right, and put their observations into terms of those basic concepts. (“So-and-so’s pitch sounds unstable, and his embouchure appears to be moving a lot. Perhaps keeping the embouchure still and increasing breath support will help to stabilize his intonation.”)

I find discouragingly little discussion (or even understanding) of these concepts in many of the published texts. Instead, I find what appears to be a lot of filler—not bad information, necessarily, but information that’s far from mission-critical. The students in these classes will mostly end up teaching beginning or intermediate students in large-group settings. They need to understand the fundamentals in ways that will help them problem-solve efficiently.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m certainly not opposed to knowledge for knowledge’s sake. I’m just saying that for an already too-short woodwind methods class, that 300-page book could perhaps be trimmed down to 100 or even 50 clear, concise pages, for significant savings of money, trees, class time, shelf space, and brain cells. Here are some examples of things that I’ve seen in actual classroom-intended woodwind methods textbooks, that just plain don’t need to be there:

• An exhaustive history of the bassoon, going all the way back to its Renaissance-era progenitors. I personally didn’t read that much bassoon history until I was studying for my doctoral comprehensive exams; I think a future school band director can safely refocus his or her efforts on something of more immediate usefulness.
• A thorough explanation and endorsement of the clarinet double-lip embouchure. While this technique can be useful, it’s non-standard, and should probably be introduced at the discretion of a private teacher, not a school band director, and in a private lesson, not in a band hall.
• Multiple-tonguing techniques for reed instruments.
• Surveys of various and obscure vibrato techniques.
• Circular breathing.
• Details of how woodwind instruments are manufactured.
• Flute harmonics used as an extended technique, and their notation.
• Photo essays of clarinet and saxophone reeds in various stages of manufacture, from cane field to finished product.
• Saxophone altissimo fingering charts.
• The use of not only bass and tenor clefs for bassoon, but also alto clef.
• Photos of obsolete tools for making oboe reeds. For that matter, I don’t think we need photos of modern reedmaking tools in this situation.
• A chapter on the history and repertoire of the wind quintet.
• Lists of college-level repertoire.
• Charts comparing single-reed mouthpiece tip openings and facing lengths.
• Discussion of the playing technique of not only the alto and bass flute, but also the E-flat flute. In the same book: bass saxophone.
• “Special problems” of the clarinet range above altissimo G.

If you are teaching a woodwind methods course, I suggest that you keep your lectures and class activities very focused, and even a little repetitive. You don’t need to cover “new” information in each lecture. You need to reinforce fundamental concepts, just like your students will hopefully be doing someday with their beginning bands. It’s tempting to gloss over concepts that are crucial but difficult (to you or to your students) and to spend time on less-critical but more easily-prepared activities (“Let’s compare the phrasing in some recordings of the Mozart clarinet concerto! Or look at photos of ancient flutes made from animal bones!”). Do your homework, consult with your colleagues (or invite them to guest-lecture?), and relentlessly edit your syllabi and lecture notes down to the basic concepts that your students will use daily in their own classrooms.

Related posts:

1. Private teaching methods of university music professors: Observations, analysis, and application
2. Fact and fiction in woodwind teaching
3. Learning to play a woodwind: is previous woodwind experience a disadvantage?

I think for many doublers the clarinet’s left-hand “sliver” key seems useless or problematic. For example, the sliver key is easy to press by mistake when intending to cover the middle and/or ring finger holes. And even when reaching for the sliver on purpose, it’s easy to accidentally cover part of the ring finger hole, producing an E-flat or B-flat that is flat and stuffy.

The left-hand sliver also lacks any real analogue on any of the other common woodwinds, so its use is a technique that doesn’t transfer easily from another instrument. Flutes, saxophones, and standard bassoons don’t have any key in that spot. The oboe has a trill key there, but its usage isn’t similar. Among the standard band/orchestral woodwinds, only the contrabassoon has a key positioned here that is used in a similar way to the clarinet family. Especially for saxophonists, the right-side fingering is much more familiar.

The Woodwind Fingering Guide (still the best fingering source on the web) lists three E-flat/B-flat fingerings in its standard clarinet fingering chart, with only the right-side-key fingering marked as “basic.” The left-hand-sliver fingering is described as a “Chromatic and trill fingering,” to “use in combination with D₄ [D below the staff] and A₅ [A above the staff].” (The “one and one” fingering using both index fingers is also listed, though it might perhaps be better relegated to the “alternate” fingering chart.)

Occasionally I’ve run across the attitude that the sliver key could perhaps be removed or wedged shut to prevent accidental venting. I think this would be a waste, and all clarinetists of an intermediate level or higher should get used to using this key as an equal partner with the right hand key—not merely as an alternative for rare occasions.

Here are a couple of examples from well-known solo repertoire where the left-hand sliver makes sense:

From Debussy, Première Rhapsodie. Click to enlarge.

In this example from Debussy, the E-flat occurs four times, each time preceded by E-natural, and followed in three cases by D—this is the aforementioned “chromatic” usage. Among the three most-common E-flat fingerings, the sliver is clearly the best technical choice here. While one-plus-one works equally well (from a technical standpoint) moving from E to E-flat, E-flat to D is compromised by having  to move two fingers, each on a different hand, each moving in a different direction; the intonation issues of one-plus-one further complicate its use. The right-hand-side fingering is less hairy, but does involve moving fingers on both hands simultaneously (a maneuver which should, of course, be possible, but which carries unnecessary risk of mistiming).

From Finzi, Five Bagatelles. Click to enlarge.

This excerpt from the first of Finzi’s Five Bagatelles highlights some other use cases. In the second measure of rehearsal number 4, a well-trained clarinetist will use the two lowest right trill keys for G-flat, which would make a transition to one-plus-one or right-side E-flat unnecessarily awkward, particularly since the E-flat then moves right back to G-flat. The sliver key allows for crisp, tidy finger movements. In the last two measures of this excerpt, the sliver key again constrains the fingers to similar motions in adjacent fingers of a single hand.

If you are new to the use of the left-hand sliver (or just a little rusty), I suggest conditioning its use for both E-flat and B-flat with slow, deliberate scale practice. Start with the chromatic scale and B-flat major, then look for appropriate places to use it in other major and minor scale material.

Related posts:

1. B-flat and A clarinets: redundant?
2. Information overload: oboe F fingerings
3. Clarinet pinky fingerings

Most of the studios require scales to be played in octaves, but I prefer a different approach. To the chagrin of my students (oboists/clarinetists/bassoonists/saxophonists), I require that they are played in this format:

1. Start on the first scale degree, in the instrument’s lowest octave.
2. Proceed upward in an even rhythm (such as even eighth notes) to the highest note in the instrument’s “range” that falls within the scale (according to an upper range limit that I set).
3. Proceed downward to the instrument’s lowest note that falls within the scale.
4. Proceed back upward to the starting note.

So, for example, an oboe student’s E-flat major scale goes like this:

I also require arpeggios, following the same rules:

Here is why I insist on full-range scales:

• It develops practical technical fluency. A major reason to practice scales and arpeggios is to condition fingering patterns that will appear frequently in music. Composers, in my experience, don’t seem to be interested in restricting scalar or arpeggiated patterns to an instrument’s most convenient octaves.
• Likewise, composers can’t be counted on to time a scalar passage so that the first scale degree always falls on a strong beat, nor to give that note an agogic accent. Full-range patterns in even rhythms encourage learning scale and arpeggio vocabulary in a more meter-agnostic way. (A more complete way of doing this would involve practicing scales and arpeggios in duple and triple rhythms and perhaps others, and starting the scale at different places in the metric pulse.)
• Full-range scales develop tone, response, familiarity, and confidence in the instrument’s extreme ranges. For example, a clarinetist playing major scales in octaves will likely play the altissimo G exactly once (in the G scale, assuming an upper range limit of G). Using the full-range method, a clarinetist will reach that note in seven different scales, and will reach the nearby F-sharp in the other five.
• For instruments with smaller “standard” ranges, a full-range approach gets students playing scales in more than just a single octave, such as perhaps the G, A-flat, and A scales on saxophone and oboe.

You’ll notice that I like everything slurred. Articulation studies do of course have their place, but with scales and arpeggios I’m mostly looking for good finger movement and consistent tone, and tonguing can hide some problems.

One issue with this method is the question of how to handle the “turnarounds” in melodic minor scales. For example, consider C-sharp melodic minor on the bassoon, with an assumed upper limit of B-sharp. For the ascending version of the scale, the extreme notes of the scale are low A-sharp and high B-sharp, but for the descending version the extreme notes are B and B. My (admittedly somewhat arbitrary) solution, to give students a uniform way of approaching melodic minors, is that the highest note of the scale is taken from the descending version and the lowest is taken from the ascending version:

This is, to my ears, the least awkward way to play melodic minor scales full range, but of course a thorough technique-building regimen will ultimately require mastery of all possible turnarounds, regardless of awkwardness.

Happy practicing!

Related posts:

1. How well do you know your major scales?
2. Introducing the Random note picker
3. Abe Weiss on practicing