Klarinet Archive - Posting 000232.txt from 1996/09

From: "Joie Canada , Jcanada713@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: Re the "gut" feel
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 23:36:28 -0400

As a violin and clarinet player, I have to comment on the difference in
materials and the difference in their effects in clarinets and other wind
instruments and in violins and stringed instruments. In the case of the
stringed instruments the material of the instrument is critical, as its
vibration forms and delivers the sound the listener hears via a "sound box"
which is the body of the instrument. The vibration of the strings alone is a
pitiful little whine (there are "practice violins" without sound resonating
bodies which are used to practice for pitch and technic and are inaudible to
anyone in the next room--excellent for practicing scales and exercises
without driving people in the same building nuts. A solid body electric
guitar played without an amp is the same thing--almost inaudible twanking
with no "tone" at all. The amp of the guitar and the hollow body of the
violin or acoustic guitar gives the instrument its tone, and in the acoustic
case, the material which will vibrate most evenly and has the right shape to
selectively amplify and damp certain overtones selectively produces the
difference between mediocre and excellent instruments. Even the varnish used
to finish the instrument effects the wood's ability to do this, hence the
premium paid to the works of great makers like Stradivarius and others who
knew how to balence wood, shape and varnish to make the best sound box.

On the other hand, the wind instrument's body material does not really
contribute that much to the vibration of the sound. Differences in interior
size and shape affect pitch and may damp certain overtones, but the wood or
metal, plastic or glass of the "tube" that the air vibrates in does not
vibrate much itself and when it does, it doesn't have much effect on the
column of air within the instrument, since the shape of a tube is not big
enough to generate the kind of echoes and cross-vibrations that so effect the
sound of stringed instruments. There are a few folk wind instruments that
have a soundbox type amplifier, usually a gourd, at the top of the wind
column, with the mouthpiece sticking out one end and the tube out the other,
with finger holes to change pitch, and the air bounces around in the gourd
before going in the tube. Some others have a gourd resonator at the bottom
so that the whole pitched vibrating column of air is echoed around in the
gourd before going out the bell to be heard by the listener. These
instruments do depend to a degree on material for their sound--thinner or
denser resonator materials will produce different tones (not pitches) but
the standard western instruments do not use this method of sound production.

I know this has been a long message, but I hope it clarifies something about
instrumental sound production for you.

Joie