Klarinet Archive - Posting 000457.txt from 1994/10

From: David Lechner <lechner@-----.US>
Subj: Chris' 'vowels-of-national-schools-of-playing' theory
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 1994 17:36:34 -0500

Traditionally, in linguistics, vowels are distinguished by the position
of the tongue and whether the lips are rounded or stretched. The degree
of opening of the mouth is relevant, but generally is tied to the position
of the tongue. In principle, changing the volume of the cavity might
affect tone (whatever we mean by that word); it could certainly affect
the pitch (recall the note someone posted "Instant Klezmer" a week or so
ago, which discussed creating a gliss primarily from the mouth cavity
rather than fingering tricks or pressure on the reed.) The same changes
to the mouth cavity (induced by tongue position/degree of openness) are
what cause the different tones created with the folk instrument, the "Jew's
harp". However, most clarinettists' tongues are not going to move very
far from the reed, regardless of the language(s) they speak, and the
rounding or stretching of the lips is going to be irrelevant to the sound
coming through the clarinet, since they are outside of the airstream by
virtue of the mouthpiece. I suppose that -- as an extension of the mouth
cavity -- the _mouthpiece_ could play a role, especially if given national
orchestras tended to favor radically different mouthpieces (in terms of the
bore and the shape), but is that realistically the case?

I recall in fourth grade that the band instructor told us to say "tu, tu"
when tonguing individual notes, and the English "u" is the natural choice
since it means that the tongue is beginning ne near the upper front teeth (and
the reed) and pulling straight back and away to the position of the "u"
(tongue high and back). It would resemble the motion of plucking a string.

But is it likely that (1) players of other languages than English would
select a vowel which _wasn't_ appropriately placed for creating the
articulation or (2) that English speaking players would pick anything _but_
precisely the vowel which was appropriate to the articulation? And after
all, that _was_ fourth grade; how many players approach a group of (non-
slurred) notes thinking "Oh, yeah, now I need to go `tu-tu-tu-tu'"?

As a linguist and bad clarinettist, I find the whole theory rather far
fetched.

I would never claim the ability to pick out the national sound of a
given clarinettist, but I'm not denying that it might be possible.
But I doubt that Chris' theory is likely to demonstrate why the sounds
might have a distinct tonal quality.

--David Lechner

My apologies for any awkwardness in the above: I'm writing this at work,
and we are forbidden by the computer system gurus from using the editor
to correct any thing.