Contra Clarinet

[JPrince]

I see a few posts about people doubling on Bass clarinets, but I was wondering if there are any toher Bari players like me that for concert bands have to double on Contra-Alto (my case) or Contra Bass (Contra Alto is key of Eb, Contra Bass is Bb) Clarinets? Well, I supposed if I get to play the lowest pitched sax (used commonly) then I might aswell play the lowest pitch clarinet (used commonly). That reminds me, what is the deal with different names? Look at my list below of sax and clarinet pitches, the ones on the left are the saxes in descending pitch, the ones on the right clarinets in descending pitch. The Sax correspondes with the clarinet type with regards to pitch (I.E. a Contra Alto's open G is the same note as a Baritone Sax's G fingered with the first 2 fingers on the LH), but the names are different. What gives? Just something I always wondered

Saxes...............Clarinets
Eb Sopranino...............Eb Sopranino
Bb Soprano..................Bb Soprano
Eb Alto..........................Eb Alto
Bb Tenor.......................Bb Bass
Eb Baritone..................Eb Contra Alto
Bb Bass........................Bb Bontra Bass

[JPrince]

Oops, I meant first 3 fingers. Oopsie, lol

[volker michaelis]

Hi JPrince,

the reason why the names of the saxophones and the clarinets are different is just the ambitus, the range of the instruments. A clarinet can play ybout 4 (four!) octaves, so the even the soprano clarinet (the normal Bb) reaches notes of the alto range. The bass clarinet in Bb sounds one octave lower, but many instruments have an additional length and keys down to written low C, which is the same range as the bassoon has. So that's the reason.

Bye, Volker

[MS]

JPrince
three fingers on bari gives you a G. Press the register key and you get a G an octave higher.

Three fingers (without reg key) on the EEb contra Alto gives you a C. Press sthe register key and you get a G (12 notes higher). So clarinets overblow 12 notes. Saxes overblow 8 notes.

Names
BBbcontra bass sounds one octave lower than Bb bass clar.
EEb contra alto sounds one octave lower than the Eb alto clarinet.

Logical in one sense - not in another sense, because it's in the bass-contrabass range.

[David Spiegelthal]

I play bari/tenor saxes and clarinet/bass clarinet in one society/jazz big band, and I'm trxing to persuade the bandleader to have me replace the bass clarinet with EEb contra-alto clarinet (I play a Buescher plastic contra, which is identical to Bundy, and one of the few Bundy instruments I like and probably one of the all-time little-known bargains in the musical instrument world). The contra has a big, deep sound and the same lowest note as a Bb bass sax, so I believe it would be an acceptable substitute for the occasional bass sax lines I get, while allowing me to simply read Eb bari sax lines an octave lower mostly, or read concert-pitch bass clef parts directly (pretending it's in treble clef and adding three sharps/negating three flats).