One of the most thankless challenges of the tárogató is its tuning. It would probably be best to describe it as gamey, meaning that unlike orchestral woodwinds that have been civilised over time to conform to standard tuning, the tárogató stands out on the periphery of culture punching the winter air with its cold, primeval tunings.
And of that riotous incoherence, none is worse than the middle D, which sits unavoidably in the middle of the instrument. I’ve tried many tricks to ameliorate the problem (dropping my jaw to the floor just for the one note, pulling the instrument out risking even more havoc elsewhere, you know, the lot), but it never occurred to me that the tuning itself might be wrong.
That supposition goes against the tenor of woodwind physiology which assumes certain things about fingers for pretty much all woodwinds. From the contra-bassoon to the piccolo, they all pretty much agree that the octave key is pressed when going over the octave (sounds logical). Even the clarinet with its octave-plus-five eccentricity has a register key that gets pressed once the lower notes have all been consumed and the upper register is called for.
Yet, despite what standard fingering charts for the tárogató contend, playing the D in the second octave does not use the octave but instead requires the raising of the left-hand index finger instead.
To illustrate the improvement it produces in tuning, the following sound clip contains two attempts at a D major scale (with a tuner as a control), which first show the corrected version (using the fingering above) and then the so-called standard fingering. I assure you, I didn’t monkey with my embouchure on these two versions just to make my point.
The challenges with this fingering are,
- It’s counter-intuitive for woodwind players, and
- It’s awkward considering that all notes above it require the octave key.
On the other hand, there are some passages that are actually easier with this fingering. They speak faster and this part may be of interest to composers who want to understand the instrument better (there should be one or two out there somewhere), and also tárogatonists, such as myself. And Ed too.
I came across this noodle in a piece by Hungarian-German composer, Istvan Horvath-Thomas, in his suite called Partita Ongarese for tárogató and piano. On first playing, this seemed difficult but with the new and more intune fingering, it’s a breeze.