Klarinet Archive - Posting 000173.txt from 1993/11

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Clarinet sound
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1993 13:21:05 -0500

At last, a real discussion!!

Claudia Zornow suggests in a very well structured argument that
the quality of the clarinet sound is mostly determined by the
myriad of small muscular adjustments that occur withing the confines
of the mouth; i.e., the embouchure. (The spelling of that word has
taken a terrible beating over the last few weeks. Claudia had it
correct, of course.)

She also suggests that this is shown to be the case by the fact
that the quality of sound improves over time and, if sound is
determined solely by body cavities, this would not occur.

Good point Claudia!! But I add also that Pavarotti did not sound like
Pavarotti when he first began so there must be a process whereby
his sound production mechanism used all of his physical resources
as a function of time. Since, in the case of the human voice, those
resources are mostly (though not exclusively) head and chest cavities,
this would imply that the process is evolutionary for the human voice
and, therefore, could also be evolutionary for a clarinet player, too.

However, we are not at all in disagreement. I think my original note
said that, by the time the air column leaves the mouth, the quality
of the sound is, effectively established. And this statement is
not at all inconflict with what you said; i.e., we are both saying
that the reed is not the influential party that is being suggested
by so many people on this bb. It may be the myriad mouth things that
we do, or it may be the body cavities, or it may be some unknown
combination of both. But the sound is a function of the body,
not the reed.

(Of course, I should not be putting words into your mouth but that is
where I think our area of agreement lies. Please correct me if I have
not stated your position accurately. And yes, this topic was briefly
discussed on rec.music.classical. I think this board to be a better
place for a more lengthy discussion of it. Don't you?)

Tom Ascher at the University of Illinois add an interesting perspective
to this conversation. Tom says "If the quality of the sound is
primarily a function of the body, why would a clarinet sound like
a clarinet rather than a flute, oboe, saxophone, ..."

I think the problem that we have here Tom is the difficulty of talking
about two things and the choice of words in describing those two
things. One thing is the character of the sound; i.e., a child playing
a clarinet on his/her first lesson makes the instrument sound like
a clarinet because s/he is compelled to do so by virtue of the physical
makeup of the thing from the lips out.

The other thing is the quality of the sound; i.e., the thing that all
of use are trying to achieve within the constraints of sound
character. How to make a predefined quality into a certain character.

I must admit that most of us (and me especially) are rather loose in
our use of those terms, almost to the point where we use them
synonymously. And I thank you for bringing up an argument that
forces us to discuss this more precisely.

In effect, a bassoon sounds like a bassoon because it cannot
do otherwise. It's sound comes from things from the lips out.
Same thing with a saxophone. These are instruments where the
sound source is partly inside the body and partly outside the
body. A singer has the sound source completely inside the body.
A fiddle player has the sound source completely outside the body.

I suspect, the more the sound source gravitates from inside the
body to outside the body, the less the sound character is
identifiable as belonging to a specific person. I can tell
Pavarotti from De Stefano blindfolded, but I can't tell Drucker
from Cohen unless I watch them. And I certainly can't tell
Heifitz from Franciscotti at all!

Dan

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Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
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