Klarinet Archive - Posting 000572.txt from 1995/12

From: "Gregory T. Wright" <103147.1471@-----.COM>
Subj: Tammi Spencer's comment on uniformity
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 1995 00:52:06 -0500

Dear fellow musicians:
Of course every mouthpiece is different! I have always been told "try
before you buy," but I have never found a store which would let me...
Re: the response comment by Dan Leeson, <In fact, there was a discussion
on this board of more than a year ago that suggested that once the air left the
mouth, the sound was essentially formed no matter who made the mouthpiece.>,
aside from reed differences I offer the following from my past experience as a
student in Michigan's Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.
During the time that I was a camper there, one of the staff members was
a
man named Jim Boitos. He accepted a full time professorship at Illinois State
University (I think), simply because the name of the town was "Normal," and he
knew that THAT was as close as he could ever get to normalcy.
Before I go any farther, I must say that this story specifically deals
with SAXOPHONE mouthpieces & sound. Mr. Boitos played lead alto sax (and
soprano sax, flute and _clarinet_) in The Blue Lake Monster, the faculty big
band. On some tunes, he wanted a brighter sound than his mouthpiece would give
him, so he took an old reed, narrowed it a bit, and cut off the tip & shoulders,
leaving the arrow (no barbs)-shaped heart and the butt.
He would slide this "baffle" (his name) into his mouthpiece pointy-end
first (momentarily removing the "playing" reed to do so) for one tune, or just a
soli/solo, and have a brand-new sound. It was placed longitudinally
(obviously), pressed against the top of the mouthpiece. It was held in place by
(a) friction, and (b) as saliva soaked into the reed, the cane would expand,
causing more of (a).
How does it work? It would seem to me that by placing this baffle into
the mouthpiece, it took up the volume normally occupied by some volume of air.
With less air in the mouthpiece, the mouthpiece's resonant frquency would be
higher. If the resonant frequency is higher, the partials thus reinforced will
be higher ones, and that is the definition of a brigher timbre. (Also see the
dictionary definition of "formant".)
I'm sorry if this is too sax-centric for the list, but I do remember
reading something here last month about how clarinets and saxophones are "first
cousins, and so by admiring them, we admire ourselves."

Greg Wright

103147.1471@-----.com