303 Clarinet Fingerings & 276 Trills

From the publisher:

"The author, Alan Sim, has enjoyed a career both as a performing musician and as a research engineer. His study of clarinet fingerings has led to this book which should be of value to students, to performers, and to the simply curious!

It is an organized collection of 303 fingerings for 52 chromatic notes rising to the altississimo G two octaves above the stave! These are supported by 276 fingerings for half- and whole-tone trills.

In addition there are 8 pages of critical discussion of factors affecting tone and intonation, and liberal comments are given on every page to assist in comparing and evaluating the alternative fingerings.

All fingerings are displayed schematically by diagrams that enable instant interpretation at a glance without having to recall the meanings of various numbers and letters. Many have symbols to indicate qualitative features such as sharpness or dullness.

The fingerings are valid for soprano Boehm system clarinets in B♭ and A having 17 keys and 6 rings."

From the preface:

"I must acknowledge indebtedness in the first place to Frederick J. Thurston and Alan Frank whose tutor 'The Clarinet,' published by Boosey & Hawkes many years ago, enabled me to embark on the task of teaching myself to play the instrument. The exceptional book 'The Clarinet & Clarinet Playing' by Robert Willaman, published by Carl Fischer in 1944, was also a great help in the early days.

It soon became apparent that fingering is a profound problem when trying to master the clarinet, and so I perused every book, tutor and fingering chart that came my way, only to find a rather limited set of fingerings scattered amongst various publications. 

I therefore set out to compile as exhaustive a collection of fingerings as was practicable, and edit the result into a useable form. This is it!

The book is, I hope, small enough to be carried in a pocket, or kept, perhaps, in an instrument case, or even perched on a stand with the music. I trust these advantages will compensate for the rather minimal size of the diagrams. 

No attempt has been made to meet the requirements of multiphonic music, etc. These are well catered for in 'New Directions for Clarinet' by Phillip Rehfeldt, published by The University of California Press Ltd. in 1977. 

A difficulty I have now is in recalling where all the information came from, many of the inclusions being a result of personal experimentation. I wish to record my thanks to those colleagues and pupils who have directly or indirectly contributed to this work, and in particular to Heather and Marion who have helped in checking the contents, and to Ken who has been so valuable with the printing and production."