Clarinet Barrels, What's their purpose? Options

[balu114]

Hello All,

I have seen lots of threads on this forum about Clarinet mouthpieces and I sort of have the idea of importance of the mouthpieces and their effect in changing the sound.

But I have hardly seen any thread on Clarinet Barrels. Well... a few of them.

What is the purpose of the barrel? What effect do they have on the sound (other than providing the necessary length or making the sound sharp or flat)?

How different barrels (products, makers) vary?

I am looking forward to your very informative replies (which I get every time!!).

Many thanks,
Balu

[Dharma]

Firstly, an enormous caveat: I'm a complete clarinet novice, and am not talking from experience, but just from what I've picked up from other forums.

You've pointed out one of the functions of the barrel, which is in tuning. As well as using barrels of slightly different length, you can also correct the tuning of the instrument by pulling out the barrel from the top joint very slightly if required.

After that, it seems to be about tone production and playability. In a sense, the barrel is an extension of the mouthpiece, and can effect the resistance of the full instrument quite significantly. A barrel well matched to the other components can relieve stuffiness in the throat register as well.

It can also affect the overall tone of the instrument, and the ease with which variety of tone can be achieved.

Many players on another forum (some of whom are full-time symphony players) seem to believe that rather than trying to find a perfect mouthpiece, it's better to try to find a perfect mouthpiece/barrel combination.

Barrels are made from the same range of materials as clarinets, with opinion divided as to whether hard rubber or wood are better (even amongst players of top-grade wooden instruments).

I don't have enough experience to say how makes/models differ, but I suspect to some extent that's like asking how mouthpieces differ, and they answer is they differ because they are different (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Most makers of custom barrels will supply two or three examples for testing, as not only does each model differ, but each individual barrel will differ, just as with mouthpieces.

Hope that helps, and I hope to be corrected by someone with more experience (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)