# Talk:A-flat clarinet

The Rough Guide to the Clarinet mentions that above E-flat there are piccolo clarinets in E and A-flat.  I've never heard of a high E-natural clarinet--I am assuming a typo for F or G, but figured I'd put it here and see if anyone knows anything about it. --Myke Cuthbert 06:48, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, now we have evidence (Rice) that such an instrument did exist.  (But the high B-natural clarinet has vanished from his lists) -- Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert (talk) 00:47, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

A bass guitar? In the 1880s? Really? The Belgian Ocelot (talk) 17:54, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Acoustic bass guitars go back that far. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 22:44, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

I've dropped some suggestions over on the WikiProject Musical Instruments discussion, but here's a couple of more useful sources to mine:

Rice, Albert R. (March 2017). "Small Clarinets: History, Instruments, and Music". The Galpin Society Journal. 70: 135–68, 230–1. doi:10.2307/45200834. JSTOR 45200834.
Baines, Anthony (1977). Woodwind Instruments and their History (3rd ed.). New York: Dover Publications (published 1991). p. 124–5. ISBN 978-0-486-26885-9. LCCN 91023745. OCLC 24010861. OL 1544645M. Wikidata Q115155619.
Klassisches Wiener Schrammelquartett. Wiener Typen Marsch (Audio recording). Retrieved 27 January 2023 – via YouTube. The delightful recording by Vienna Phil players of the 19th century Wiener Schrammelquartett music, as described in Tschaikov's high clarinets chapter in the Cambridge Companion (p. 53), which includes Richard Schönhofer playing the high G clarinet.
— Jon (talk) 04:31, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Ok I've had a go at including info from various more recent refs, and dividing the article into history and construction sections, and improving refs etc. I think we're in good shape for a WP:GAN now :) — Jon (talk) 00:09, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
That said, there are a few things. It would be nice to have a sound recording of the A♭ clarinet, even if it's just a simple 3 octave E major scale from written E₃ to E₆ (middle C to silly-C). Also, I can't find any evidence that Buffet Crampon are still making the A♭ (e.g. current offerings). — Jon (talk) 04:48, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure that Buffet is still making them either. :-(  Vandoren is still apparently making the mouthpiece, which is a relief because I otherwise wouldn't know what I'd do if it chipped.  -- Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert (talk) 01:07, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
I've always wondered if 3D printing could save the day there, when it gets good and fine enough; same with recreating museum mouthpieces for things like the serpent. Also, I have trouble with this assertion: "The usage of the term 'piccolo clarinet' to refer specifically to the A♭ clarinet, found in some music software, does not appear before the twenty-first century." — given the A♭ is essentially an Italian instrument, and has been called (in Italian) a clarinetto/clarino piccolo since its introduction in the early 19th century (along with other small clarinets), e.g. Bellini (1844), Verdi scores, Orsi and other maker catalogues, other writers ( c.f. Rice 2017); Rice also discusses the (lack of consistent) small clarinet nomenclature, and lack of reliable sources of information in general (p. 135); Ripamonti call their A♭ a clarinetto piccolo since at least 1980; Shackleton's Grove entry (8th ed. published 2001 but substantially written in earlier editions) calls them piccolo clarinets, as does Lawson (p. 33) and Tchaikov (p. 54) in the 1995 Cambridge Companion; American composer William Neil's 1987 "Concerto for Piccolo Clarinet" (for E♭; catalog; YouTube; Tchaikov in Cambridge Companion p. 51, note 5);  This all pre-dates widespread use of notation software. Quite separately, I suspect that if manufacturers, musicologists and composers have all been calling them piccolo clarinets for over 20 years, and nearly 200 years in Italian, then we can say that they are nowadays (at least "often") known as piccolo clarinets. I don't think notation software comes into it, really. — Jon (talk) 04:47, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
The first sentence (The A-flat (A♭) clarinet is the most common member of the highest-pitched instruments of the clarinet family.) could be technically correct, but it sounds potentially very misleading (as if it is saying it is the most common type of clarinet) especially if you gloss over a key word or have low familiarity with the rest of the clarinet family. Perhaps the lede can be rewritten to prevent this type of misreading. Hftf (talk) 06:03, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
Not sure if it belongs here, or another article, but the "hot fountain pen" as used/invented by Adrian Rollini might qualify as a small clarinet, mentioned in Baines 1977 and in the Oxford Bate Collection; also in a recently published Rollini biography. He used them in recordings c. 1925-30, built 21-26 cm in length, in E♭ or C. — Jon (talk) 06:36, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

I think there can be more said about the A♭ in Italy, which is where it principally survived the tumultuous early 20th century, particularly in military bands. It has also been used by many Italian composers (perhaps less well-known outside Italy) in both band and classical music. Italian writers and musicians such as Adriano Amore and Giovanni di Lorenzo (not the football player) have interesting material we can source. — Jon (talk) 23:55, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

 Jon (talk) 23:55, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
Indeed -- that would be great to add.  There wasn't much in the past and glad to see more information going forward.  (Btw -- I've restored the bit about the modern usage of the term in software which I've had to deal with a lot in maintaining the article over the past 10 years.  If you want, I'll find a citation though finding a negative citation can be difficult.  I'd like to think that as a professional musicologist and the person who owns an A-flat clarinet who contributed all the images for the article, you might give a little leeway.  Thanks!).  -- Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert (talk) 09:40, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
@Mscuthbert it's not just that it's uncited, it's that it's also not true, as I tried to explain above. The term piccolo clarinet was in common use, by musicologists, Italians, composers and players, long before notation software. I'm trying to get these articles to at least GA, so we need citations for everything. — Jon (talk) 12:31, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
I’d love to see a citation that piccolo clarinet refers to the Ab etc clarinets and not the Eb and D. I’ve looked for years and never found one. -- Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert (talk) 08:17, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
If you need a citation for everything I suggest removing all the images from the article. I just took them and claimed that they’re my Ab clarinet and it’s reeds. They could be G clarinets or I could have photoshopped them. No one has published a RS saying that I own an Ab clarinet and took a photo of it. :-) -- Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert (talk) 08:26, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
I provided several direct citations above, but to repeat: Italian opera scores, military band music, and manufacturers have all referred to them as clarino/clarinetto piccolo since the early 19th century; the very Ripamonti clarinet you (claim to!) own is called a clarinetto piccolo in La♭ on their website; Shackleton and Porter both called them piccolo clarinets in Grove; Colin Lawson calls them piccolo clarinets on page 33 of the 1995 Cambridge Companion. Saying nobody called them piccolo clarinets before 2000 is therefore incorrect, and without a citation, saying that only notation software vendors started calling them piccolo clarinets is WP:OR. Perhaps we could instead focus on what we can say. If we want to say that notation software calls the A♭ clarinet a piccolo clarinet, then we'd need to cite a manual or other printed source (I can't find anything in the online Finale manual, it offers "Clarinet in B♭", "Clarinet in A" and "Clarinet in E♭" in the instrument list; MuseScore 4 offers a "piccolo clarinet" which is in A♭; not sure what Sibelius and Dorico do). As for images, I'm glad you've contributed them, otherwise we'd have to rely on some 19 century clarinets with weird fingering systems in the Edinburgh University collections (which are all called "piccolo clarinet" by the way); also, we don't need to WP:SKYBLUE. — Jon (talk) 15:30, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
@Mscuthbert: Honestly, I was about to  nominate this article for a Good Article review, so we could use it as a test run for restoring the other clarinet articles that used to be GA, but this one remaining thing would not pass a review because there's no sources. I'd like to know what you think?—Jon (talk) 04:24, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
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