A quarter tone clarinet is an experimental clarinet designed to play music using quarter tone intervals. Around 1900, Dr. Richard H. Stein, a

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

musicologist made the first quarter-tone clarinet, which was soon abandoned. Using special fingerings, quarter tones may be produced by a skilled player on a conventional clarinet. In However, such fingerings are awkward in rapid passages, and results tend to vary from one clarinet to another. In the 1920s

Alois Hába Alois Hába (21 June 1893 – 18 November 1973) was a Czech composer, music theorist and teacher. He belongs to the important discoverers in modern classical music, and major composers of microtonal music, especially using the quarter-tone scal ...

commissioned a quarter tone clarinet from the Kohlert company of Grazlitz.Hoeprich, Eric (2008). ''The Clarinet'', p.293. . In 1937, another German, the instrument builder Fritz Schüller (1883-1977) of

Markneukirchen Markneukirchen () is a town in the Vogtlandkreis district, in Saxony, Germany, close to the Czech border. It lies in between the Erzgebirge and the Fichtelgebirge in the Elstergebirge, southeast of Plauen, and northeast of Aš (Czech Republic ...

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 hole A tone hole is an opening in the body of a wind instrument which, when alternately closed and opened, changes the pitch of the sound produced. Tone holes may serve specific purposes, such as a trill hole or register hole. A tone hole is, "in w ...

s of both bores simultaneously, and a

valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fitting ...

was provided to switch rapidly from one bore to the other. Music for quarter tone clarinet has been written by

Eric Mandat Eric Paul Mandat (born 1957) is an American clarinetist and composer. Mandat began his clarinet studies under the tutelage of Richard Joiner of the Denver Symphony. He later studied with Lee Gibson, Keith Wilson, D. Stanley Hasty, and Charles ...

, Alois Hába (Sonata and '' Matka''),

Viktor Ullmann Viktor Ullmann (1 January 1898, in Teschen – 18 October 1944, in KZ Auschwitz-Birkenau) was a Silesia-born Austrian composer, conductor and pianist. Biography Viktor Ullmann was born on 1 January 1898 in Těšín (Teschen), which belonged ...

, and by some various

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

musicians through the late 20th century. Other composers, such as Béla Bartók and Pierre Boulez, wrote for conventional clarinet using quarter tones.

Notes

Clarinets Microtonality {{SingleReed-instrument-stub

See also

Notes