Klarinet Archive - Posting 000011.txt from 1996/06

From: "James M. Pyne" <jpyne@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: A Centered Tone/Voicing
Date: Sat, 1 Jun 1996 20:15:01 -0400

This is in response to Leonardo Fuks well informed comments on the terms
"voicing" and "well-centered tone".

As an acoustics researcher who spent many years as a professional
clarinetist, I would agree with Leonardo that much of "well-centered" has
to do with clear relative pitch definition (intonation), although the term
"centered" is normally used to describe some attribute of timbre. In my
experience "well-voiced" and "well-centered" (when applied to clarinet
tone) are often used rather interchangeably by clarinetists.

My view, after analyzing a large number of clarinet spectra, is that there
is an interactive relationship between timbre and pitch that is perceived
as a unity. This interaction can give the impression of yielding either a
well-focused ("centered") or unfocused ("un-centered", "spread") tone.
These attributes can be seen in the spectrum if one knows what to look for.

An interesting issue is raised by this discussion that may be worth
mentioning. We have no "timbre vocabulary" in music that can be
consistently understood by musicians to describe variations in tone color
that are essential to our art. Visual artists can describe "cobalt blue"
and have a good understanding of what that means to their community. Their
training includes that information. One goal of our research group is to
explore the possibility that computer-controlled, real-time visual
representations (spectra) of musical tones may give us a way to "teach" an
agreed-upon timbre vocabulary.

Jim Pyne
Clarinet Studio/Research Group
The Ohio State University School Of Music