Klarinet Archive - Posting 000594.txt from 1995/04

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: John Baetens comments on guitar and clarinet
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 1995 17:11:58 -0400

John says that his guitar sounds better as he gets older whereas his
clarinet sounds worse and he attributes these divergent charactistics
to the fact that an aging clarinet deteriorates while and aging guitar
improves.

John, that may be so. I can't say. But there are other things involved
here. The sound of the clarinet is made by the body because the head
cavities and sinuses (to say nothing of the chest characteristics) are
intimately involved with sound production.

But as
one grows older these things change and thus the clarinet sound produced
by an older body is going to be different (I am not saying "worse,"
only different) than a guitar that ages. And I am not prepared to
agree that an aging guitar will sound better because I know nothing
about this and defer to your expertise. But as a general principle, I
guess that aged wood will sound different from young wood when it is the
wood that is responsible for the sound as in the case of a violin, a
cello, or a guitar. But as we have said on this list for a long time,
the sound of a clarinet is independent of the material from which it
is made (within limitations - a cork clarinet would probably have a
different character).

I had periodontal surgery about 15 years ago in which all the skin around
the teeth was elevated so that more tooth was exposed to the air. I also
lost three teeth in the operation. The net result was that my sound
changed considerably. I don't really know if it is better or worse because
I can't hear myself when I play, but I sense that it is different. But
there was a case of a major change in my sound over the space of a week.

Dan

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