Klarinet Archive - Posting 000169.txt from 1993/11

From: Claudia Zornow <claudia@-----.COM>
Subj: Clarinet sound
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 11:55:49 -0500

Dan Leeson writes:

> The reason why I agree is that the quality of sound is mostly
> influenced by an item over which none of us have any control;
> namely the nature of our heads the rest of our bodies. The
> body is what makes the sound character, not the reed.

> It is true that it is difficult to get any sound at all with
> a reed of a certain nature, but given one that plays even
> vaguely correctly, the sound that is produced is a function
> of the sinus cavities of the head and the nature of the chest.

This question has come up before, on rec.music.classical (or
was it r.m.c.performing?). I argue that the quality of sound
is mostly determined by the myriad of small muscular adjustments
such as tongue position, chin position, jaw position, position
of corners--all those things that go into what we call embouchure.

How can a player's tone improve over time if his/her sound is
predetermined by head and chest anatomy? It improves because
we learn, through lots of painstaking practice and muscle memory,
exactly what to do with all of those small muscles to produce
the sound we want.

Claudia