I'm really out of tune on some notes. Will a barrel fix it?

Rob wites: 

I’m using a 66mm barrel and the clarion and low F are sharp—like 15 cents. I can adjust [down] the altissimo notes that are sharp, but the other notes are really hard for me to adjust.

40 yrs ago, when I used to play a lot, I always played sharp in the upper clarion. I then got a 67mm Buffet barrel and I still played sharp. My clarinet and set up are all different now. I don’t know if it’s my mouth, my tongue or my ear or all of the above. I’ll tell you this: when I’m concentrating on playing with a focused ringing tone, the high pitch is more noticeable.

My teacher recommended a zoom barrel so I can play chamber music. Can you recommend a zoom barrel for my clarinet? He also mentioned getting a [Vandoren] BD4 or BD5 sometime soon, which I’m looking forward to, but I don’t really have confidence this will do the trick. I currently have an M30 series 13 and use Vandoren V12s 

I know I’m putting you on the spot, but if you have any idea that could help my pitch, I would really appreciate it.

 

Hi Rob,

I’m sure other barrels will fit your clarinet — tons. But here is the thing: if your pitch is that high with a 66 barrel, then something else is going on. Now, I don’t know your playing, of course, so this is a bit “diagnosis by crystal ball,” which means I could be wildly off-base here.

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on this, and reached out to a friend of mine in Sydney who studied this exact thing. His group built a clarinet-playing robot so they could change one thing at a time, and pitch went up with lip pressure across the entire range of the instrument. You didn’t mention your reed strength, but harder reeds need more lip pressure, and that resistance is something a lot of players like, because it feels like they can control the instrument more…when in fact, the instrument is actually controlling them. You HAVE to bite to get a sound out (even though you may not realize you’re biting). So one experiment might be this: try a reed that is about 1/2 to 1 strength too soft for your mouthpiece. You will have to relax your embouchure to get it to play — and even though you will probably hate your sound, that’s not the point. The point is to do this with a tuner to see whether it has an effect on your pitch. I bet it does.

The second half of the question is about voicing — where your tongue is and the shape it makes to focus your airstream into the mouthpiece. I have a trick that helps you figure out where your tongue is that involves shoving a sock into the bell of your clarinet. Do that, and then play a long, clarion B. So basically, all fingers down with the register key open. Use a lot of air, but pay attention to your tongue position (is it in the “ee” position or the “ah” position, for example). You will make a tiny squeak, and your goal is to make the squeak as LOW as possible. What that does it show you how open your oral cavity can be, while still playing the clarinet, and how the corners of the sides of your mouth counteract the biting jaw muscles, and the tongue position to continue to produce sound. This is really hard to describe and easy to show…but I don’t yet have a video showing this I don’t think. Give it a try and see if you can get anywhere…and then let me know.

But here’s the thing: a barrel is not going to help you across the entire range of the clarinet. A longer barrel doesn’t move every note the same amount. The short-tube notes, your throat tones especially, drop faster than the low ones. So by the time a longer barrel gets your low F down to pitch, your throat tones are flat. You also said you were still sharp on a 67mm barrel years ago, on a different clarinet. If you’ve been sharp up there on every barrel and every clarinet for 40 years, the barrel probably isn’t the problem.