The Boehm system for the clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

 is a system of clarinet keywork, developed between 1839 and 1843 by Hyacinthe Klosé

Hyacinthe Klosé

Hyacinthe Eléonore Klosé was a French clarinet player, professor at the Conservatoire de Paris, and composer....

 and Auguste Buffet jeune. The name is somewhat deceptive; the system was inspired by Theobald Boehm

Theobald Boehm

Theobald Böhm was a German inventor and musician, who perfected the modern Western concert flute and its improved fingering system...

's system

Boehm System

The Boehm system is a system of keywork for the flute, created by inventor and flautist Theobald Boehm between 1831 and 1847.Prior to the development of the Boehm system, flutes were most commonly made of wood, with an inverse conical bore, eight keys, and tone holes that were small in size, and...

 for the flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

, but necessarily differs from it, since the clarinet overblows

Overblowing

Overblowing A technique used while playing a wind instrument which, primarily through manipulation of the supplied air , causes the sounded pitch to jump to a higher one...

 at the twelfth rather than the flute's octave

Octave

In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

. Boehm himself was not involved in its development.

Klosé and Buffet took the standard soprano clarinet

Soprano clarinet

The soprano clarinets are a sub-family of the clarinet family.The B clarinet is by far the most common type of soprano clarinet - the unmodified word "clarinet" usually refers to this instrument...

, adapted the ring and axle keywork system to correct serious intonation issues on both the upper and lower joints of the instrument, and added duplicate keys for the left and right little fingers, simplifying several difficult articulations throughout the range of the instrument.

The Boehm clarinet was initially most successful in France—it was nearly the only type of clarinet used in France by the end of the 1870s—but it started displacing the Albert system

Albert system

The Albert system refers to a system of clarinet keywork and fingering developed by Eugène Albert. In the United Kingdom it is known as the simple system. It has been largely replaced by the Boehm system ....

 clarinet and its descendants in Belgium, Italy, and America in the 1870s and—following the example of Manuel Gómez, a prominent clarinetist in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 who used the Boehm system and the Full Boehm system clarinet—in England in the 1890s.
By the early twentieth century, virtually all clarinets used by performers outside of Germany, Austria, and Russia were of the Boehm system or one of its derivatives. The only alteration to Klosé and Buffet’s clarinet that has wide currency is the Full Boehm system clarinet which was introduced by Buffet in the 1870s.

Development

The clarinet was an inelegant instrument in the early 19th century, despite the eight keys it had acquired. In 1812, Iwan Müller

Ivan Mueller

Ivan Mueller was a clarinetist, composer and inventor who at the beginning of the 19th century was responsible for a major step forward in the development of the clarinet, the air-tight pad....

 remodeled the instrument and raised the number of keys to 13. Other instrument makers made small improvements to Müller's design, but the Boehm system clarinet represented the first complete redesign of the key system after Müller.

How the instrument was changed

The ring keys that Boehm created for his flute gave other instrument inventors the means to devise logical fingering systems that allowed for more physical agility. Ring keys and needle springs were the two major features adapted for Klosé and Buffet's new design. However, they did not incorporate Boehm's concept of full venting.

Ring keys virtually eliminated the problems of cross-fingerings. These rings surround the tone holes so that when a finger covers the tone hole, it also pushes a metal ring down to a level flush with the top of the hole. The ring, in turn, is connected to a long axle (borrowed directly from Boehm's flute), which then causes another hole located elsewhere on the instrument to be covered by a padded key.

As an original invention for the clarinette à anneaux mobiles, Buffet utilized needle springs in order to control the opening and closing of keys mounted on axles. Needle springs are mounted on posts screwed directly into the wooden body of the clarinet and are used for all keys other than those with extremely short pivoting axles, which continue to make use of simple leaf springs attached longitudinally to the underside of each separate key. This is the method of operation of the keys on pre-Boehm woodwind instruments.

Results

The acoustics

Acoustics

Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...

, tone

Pitch (music)

Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...

, and technique of the Boehm system clarinet are decidedly different from the pre-Boehm clarinet.

Shackleton writes, "In particular, it is easy to perceive that the pre-Boehm clarinet, with rather small tone holes spaced about 2 cm apart, should have very different characteristics from the Boehm instrument carrying tone holes every centimeter or so." The tone of individual notes and the intonation of the scale depend on the precise relationship between the resonances. For example, if the second prominent resonance is not exactly an octave plus a fifth above the fundamental, the resonance will not be properly built and will therefore result in a less vibrant tone.

The tone of the Boehm system clarinet is more open than its predecessors' veiled tone. Fork- and cross-fingerings create a greater number of closed holes—another cause of the pre-Boehm clarinet's dull tone. Due to the advancements in keywork, the Boehm system clarinet does not rely on many such fingerings, allowing for more open holes and a more vibrant tone that forgoes the unique color of the pre-Boehm clarinet.

Furthermore, Boehm keying advancements notably improved the technical facility of its players. Boehm system clarinetists became able to play their instruments using more sequential fingering patterns, therefore improving the accuracy of fast passages.

Full Boehm clarinet

The Full Boehm system clarinet is the only extensively accepted modification of Klosé and Buffet's 1843 design, though its added complexity, weight, and cost have kept it from supplanting the latter altogether. It features four improvements creating an even more streamlined fingering system. The first improvement was to include a seventh ring on the instrument; adding a cross-fingered E flat’/B flat’’ to the range, much like that of the modern saxophone. Next, an articulated C sharp’/G sharp’’ key was added; permitting a B/C sharp’ and F sharp’’/G sharp’’ trill to be made in nearly perfect pitch with a much simpler fingering pattern. A low E flat key was also added because it is a note that did not exist on previous clarinets and it is required by some composers. The addition of the E flat key is also convenient when A clarinet parts must be transposed at sight on the B flat instrument, so that the former's lowest note, (written) E (often called for because it is part of any clarinet system’s practical range) may be played on the latter as (written) E flat. Finally, an alternate A flat/E flat’’ key for the left hand fourth finger was added, allowing more efficient fingering of certain passages.

Other modified Boehm systems

Numerous other attempts have been made to create new clarinet key systems based on the Boehm system. None has achieved substantial acceptance, though some are still in use by a few musicians.

Mazzeo system

The Mazzeo system was invented by Rosario Mazzeo

Rosario Mazzeo

Rosario Mazzeo was an American clarinetist and clarinet system designer. He was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, and afterward lived in Boston, Massachusetts...

 in the 1950s. Its main feature is a linkage operated by any one of the right-hand ring-key fingers which opens the third right-index-finger trill key for playing the throat B flat, instead of using the register key, thereby avoiding the tonal compromise that comes from using the tiny register key hole for venting B flat.

McIntyre system

The McIntyre system was patented in 1959 by Robert and Thomas McIntyre of Naugatuck, Connecticut

Naugatuck, Connecticut

Naugatuck is a consolidated borough and town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The town spans both sides of the Naugatuck River just south of Waterbury, and includes the communities of Union City on the east side of the river, which has its own post office, Straitsville on the...

. They developed a new mechanism for control of the throat notes (A flat, A, and B flat) using only the left hand rings, allowing these notes to be played without the need to move the position of the left hand. There are only three trill keys, rather than the standard Boehm system's four, for the right first finger. Otherwise the fingerings are the same as in the standard Boehm system.

The McIntyres produced and sold clarinets using their system, but faced an uphill battle in marketing them. Other than the need for the clarinetist to learn the new throat fingerings, the main drawbacks to the system were the weight and complexity of the mechanism. Lacking funds to work on improvements, the McIntyres tried to interest a major clarinet manufacturer in the system but were unable to reach an agreement, and production of the instrument ceased.

NX system

The NX system was developed by acoustician and clarinetist Arthur Benade from the 1970s until his death in 1987. The NX clarinet has a distinct bore

Bore (wind instruments)

The bore of a wind instrument is its interior chamber that defines a flow path through which air travels and is set into vibration to produce sounds. The shape of the bore has a strong influence on the instruments' timbre.-Bore shapes:...

 shape. In addition, differences from the standard Boehm system include: separate holes for the register key and for throat B flat, operated by a single left thumb key via an automatic mechanism; elimination of some redundant tone holes, with some resulting changes in fingering; and modifications of tone hole spacings, tone hole depths, and key pad heights to minimize turbulence in the bore.

Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 clarinet maker Stephen Fox

Stephen Fox (clarinet maker)

Stephen Fox is a clarinetist, saxophonist and clarinet maker based in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. He is widely regarded as one of the world's foremost makers of custom, hand-built professional clarinets. Born in England, Fox completed a master's degree in physics at the University of...

 has done further research along Benade's lines, and now offers custom built NX system clarinets for sale.

Reform-Boehm system

The Wurlitzer Reform-Boehm system was developed around the middle of the 20th century by Fritz Wurlitzer, and Reform-Boehm clarinets are currently made by Herbert Wurlitzer Kunstwerkstatt für Holzblasinstrumente GmbH. The system combines the bore characteristics of Oehler system

Oehler system

The Oehler system is a system for clarinet keys developed by Oskar Oehler. Based on the Müller system clarinet, the system adds tone holes to correct intonation and acoustic deficiencies, notably of the forked notes . The system has more keys than the Boehm system, up to 27 in the Voll-Oehler system...

 clarinets with Boehm fingerings. Differences between this system and standard Boehm in actual use include different altissimo

Altissimo

Altissimo refers to the uppermost register on woodwind instruments. For clarinets, which overblow on odd harmonics, the altissimo notes are those based on the fifth, seventh, and higher harmonics. For other woodwinds, the altissimo notes are those based on the third, fourth, and higher harmonics...

fingerings, a smaller hand position, and greater bore resistance requiring more air to play.