Quarter tone clarinet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A quarter tone clarinet is an experimental clarinet designed to play music using quarter tone intervals. Using special fingerings, quarter tones may be produced by a skilled player on a conventional clarinet.^[1] However, such fingerings are awkward in rapid passages, and results tend to vary from one clarinet to another. The German instrument builder Fritz Schüller (1883-1977) of Markneukirchen made an attempt to create a quarter tone clarinet to overcome these problems. It consisted of a single mouthpiece connected to two parallel bores, one slightly longer than the other; effectively these were two clarinets tuned a quarter tone apart. A single set of keywork controlled the tone holes of both bores simultaneously, and a valve was provided to switch rapidly from one bore to the other.

Music for quarter tone clarinet has been written by Alois Hába and Viktor Ullmann.

[edit] See also

List of quarter tone pieces

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Heaton, Roger. "The Contemporary Clarinet".  In Lawson (ed.), Colin (1995). The Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet. Cambridge University Press, 174-175. 

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