Klarinet Archive - Posting 000209.txt from 1993/11

From: Cary Karp <nrm-karp@-----.SE>
Subj: Re: Clarinet sound
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1993 16:52:58 -0500

As long as Dan and I are busy monopolizing KLARINET while most people
seem to be off enjoying their Thanksgiving weekend, there is one
other point that's been discussed here to which I'd like to add my
own 2 cents worth.

The fact that a skilled clarinetist can "blow away" the tonal
difference between a mediocre and a superlative instrument says
nothing about the primary physical site of clarinet tone production.
Good violinists produce the same effect and I doubt that anyone would
say that this relates to their head and chest cavities. Clarinetists
will not be judged on their production of raw tone, but rather on the
basis of musical performance. In this context individuals may reveal
their identities regardless of any differences in their basic tone
production.

Sound is produced by the physical aggregate of the player's innards,
chops, horn, mouthpiece, reed, ligature and so on into any level of
detail that a given clarinetist might perceive as relevant. The
relative significance of the individual components are also subject
to individual judgement (although I doubt that anyone would say that
ligatures make larger contributions than do mouthpieces). There have
been plenty of formal laboratory investigations conducted into the
contributions made by many of these components but I haven't yet read
any claim for having determined *THE* primary causative factor in
tone production, although for reasons that I would regard as
definitive the horn is regarded as a higher level concern than are mouth
and chest cavities. It is, unfortunately, extraordinarily difficult to
determine the musical significance of "objective" lab data.

The descriptive metaphor that a musician may use when discussing a
complex physical process such as tone production may be judged in
terms of its utility in illuminating students and other interested
individuals. If two instrumentalists use apparently contradictory
metaphors, there is no implication that either one of them has a
better objective understanding of the underlying physical principles.

My own personal feeling is that I decide what tone I want to produce
and will accept any instrument that allows me to do so. There's a lot
of latitude here (which is more characteristic of clarinets than some
other wind instruments) but I'd still rather use the instrument which
kicks up the least fuss when I'm telling it what to do. Many of what
I would regard as profound differences in this regard will be
inaudible to anyone other than myself, even if I carefully try to
point out the differences to a listener. (And then, of course,
there's the whole important business about the feel and reliability of
keywork, etc. And, yes, I do care about reeds and mouthpieces -- I can
make them both, too, but don't. I have a large mouthpiece collection and
pick my reeds out of the box.)

Since there are, despite everything, several distinct colors on the
clarinet's tonal palette, and I'm a firm believer in various musical
genres working best with various of these colors, I have several
instruments. The one I use most is Buffet's top-of-the-line model,
the one that gets second most use is their bottom-of-the-line
(plastic).

(Although important to me, and probably audible to many listeners, the
difference ain't worth the 1000% difference in what I paid for them!)