Klarinet Archive - Posting 000807.txt from 1996/08

From: leeson@-----.E
Subj: Greg van Cott's questions about R13 shopping (fwd)
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 15:35:11 -0400

Forwarded message:
>
> 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)
> ====================================