Klarinet Archive - Posting 000713.txt from 1996/08

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Greg van Cott's questions about R13 shopping
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 11:12:28 -0400

I have been busy doing other things (though I read all the notes) and
now I recognize that I have not been curmudgeonly enough. Not having
been grumpy about one aspect of clarinet playing has allowed what I
believe to be nonsense to arise again and as seen in Greg's note.
(Nothing personal, Greg - this is business).

Greg speaks, as do many players, about the selection of his clarinet
based on its tone.

Well, we've been through this before but it is time to stir the pot again.

Horse hockey!! The clarinet is not the thing that makes the quality of
the tone. In effect, you sound essentially the same independent of
the instrument on which you execute. There are exceptions of course.

The tone quality would probably not be the same on cork or an instrument
made of papyrus. But given the fact that you have an instrument in your
hands that meets the basic definition of a clarinet, that is bored
properly, that has the holes in all the right places, the intonation
should be satisfactory and your sound will be unchanged from anything
else; i.e., metal, wood, plastic, etc.

The very idea that you purchase an instrument for "its" tone quality
when the instrument has such limited influence on tone quality is a
fundamentally unsound approach to sound generation.

You make the tone quality. Your mouthpiece aids in the task, but
once the air column leaves the base of the mouthpiece and enters the
body of the instrument, the character of the sound has already been
formed by your physical shape, the resonance characteristics of your
body particularly including the head.

This bit of fairystory is nothing more than a demonstration of how
gullible clarinetists are. You hear company X say that the tone
quality of their clarinets is best and you accept it uncritically.

Some of the basic fairystories of clarinet playing have to be
restated about every 6 months, so ingrained are they into the
psyche of clarinetists.

The source of the tone character (or tone quality) being the
instrument itself is one of them. Another is that the
tone quality is better on one brand of instrument than on
another.

Curmudgeonly nature now over.

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

   
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