Applications

· Mahler symphony number 1 and perhaps other Mahler pieces

· Ravel’s arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition. Stravinsky's Symphony for Wind Instruments.

· Music of composers and arrangers who don’t know range of the English horn is [fingered] one half-step higher than the oboe

Mahler and Ravel carefully wrote their parts so that the low B was not needed: only the low B-flat. Do you know other applications? Send citations, and I’ll add them. Barber's Die Natali requires low A. I'll have to work on that.

Alternatives

Forrests Music sells a nice Loreé English horn extension, for $135, www.forrestsmusic.com/bocals.htm#English horn_extension. John Goebel and Ray Dusté make it. It has a little hole exposed by an adjustable sleeve so you can choose whether to get B or B-flat when you finger the lowest note.

Loreé offers an extended-range English horn for only an additional $934, www.mmimports.com/EngHorn.cfm. Another low B-Flat English horn is sold by www.dupin.lu/english/catalogue.htm. Patricola’s English horn, http://www.wwbw.com/Patricola-English-Horn-i73245.music, comes with a low B-flat extension.

You could machine an extension yourself, from plastic plumbing, if you have a lathe. You could even duplicate the sleeve adjustment, by using two pieces of different sizes. Plastic plumbing sizes are chosen for press fit.

No-bell prize winner

My English horn is an old Cabart with open holes and a BIG voice. Conductors don’t ask me to play louder; they shush me. The Cabart sounds like an English horn should. I bought it for $300, in 1963.

At that time a motorcycle as my sole transportation. The English horn had no case, so I stuffed it in my parka and put the bell in a pocket. I rode over the 405 freeway from Sherman Oaks to my slum in West LA. When I got there, I had no bell. I searched and searched but didn’t even find splinters. The Cabart distributor sold me another bell for a reasonable price despite my stupidity. It fit, the bell too.

Home Depot Low B-Flat extension

Amazingly, the outside diameter (OD) of my English horn lower tenon is almost 1″ in God’s own units. So I needed a piece of approximately the right length with 1″ OD male and 1″ ID female ends. Your English horn dimensions may differ, but they should be close. Face it, people copy.

In plumbing terminology, this is a 1″ ID female to 1″ OD reducer, and the ID of the reducer should resemble the ID of the English horn bore, approximately ¾″.

Home Depot has it. I wore off the SKU, but it’s essentially a 1″ X ¾″ unthreaded reducing elbow. The OD of the ¾″ section is about 1″. Go to the plumbing department and search. Mine cost $0.79 plus tax. If you’re in Sand Point, ID Home Depot, say ″Hi″ to my cousin Glen. According to www.duraplastics.com/dura/catalog, it’s a Schedule 40 PVC/ 90 Reducing Ell/ Slip X Slip, part number 406-131, UPC 4908114070.

Modifications for use

Naturally, this isn’t the end of the story. Home projects usually require several times more work than expected and several more trips to the hardware store. The female end ID was too big and so was the male end OD.

Male end modification

Start with a fine wood rasp, and remove PVC material evenly. Maintain roundness and a reasonably straight end. Finish sand the male end with a strip of sandpaper wrapped around the end. I sanded a lot, to achieve a reasonably airtight slip fit for adjustment of pitch.

Female end modification

Now I know why cork is applied on the male parts of tenons. It’s awkward to apply cork grease to the inside of a tenon. So, put the cork grease on your finger and put your finger in the tenon. It’s also awkward to glue cork to the inside of a tenon.

I used the same thickness of cork as I use on other tenon joints, 3/32″ I think. I used rubber cement to glue the cork and my finger to the inside of the female end. Cork-to-cork seals well. It holds too, so the thing doesn’t fall apart

Don’t use too much cork grease

Once upon a time, I played my A-clarinet in the Messiah, after liberally greasing the tenon joints, which needed new cork. It was a hot day, and playing warmed up the clarinet. For some reason, I held the clarinet by the upper joint. CLUNK. The nice warm lower joint fell on the floor. OOPS. Fortunately, there was no damage to the clarinet

Adjustments

If your English horn has a resonance key on the bell, too bad. Take the key off and cover the hole with black electrician’s tape or duct tape, if you aren’t picky.

Experiment with different lengths of the extension by sliding the bell in and out on the bare male end of the elbow extension. That affected the pitch a little. Now I just slam it all the way on.

Are you crazy? An elbow?

You may have noticed in the pictures that the elbow turns the bell 90 degrees from its usual position. Get used to it. Because I play big clarinets with bells, I’m used to stuff sticking out front. Aim the bell at your audience if you want to really let them know when you hit the low B-flat. The white color of the extension is also visually appealing. Black is boring. Now you can do low B-flat exercises on your English horn too. Contact me if you want to borrow my extension, pstlarry@yahoo.com.