Klarinet Archive - Posting 000012.txt from 1994/11

From: Douglas Sears <dsears@-----.ORG>
Subj: Re: Chris' 'vowels-of-national-schools-of-playing' theory
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 13:49:42 -0500

On Mon, 31 Oct 1994, David Lechner wrote:

> 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?

You seem to be saying that nothing a person does with their mouth,
tongue, or lips affects the tone quality they get from a clarinet. I
hope I'm misunderstanding what you wrote, because that position makes no
sense at all to me. If you really believe that only the reed,
mouthpiece, barrel, and body of the clarinet determine a good or bad
tone, just try having two people play the same clarinet (one after
another, that is :) and I'm sure you'll change your mind.

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

I agree with you that the idea of native language having a direct
influence on a person's clarinet tone seems rather fanciful, but not for
your reasons. If you think that lip and mouth position are irrelevant to
tone, you must indeed be a bad clarinetist. But maybe I didn't understand
you; I've found that these electronic messages are often misunderstood.

-----------------
Doug Sears dsears@-----.org (503)343-8943