Klarinet Archive - Posting 000254.txt from 1996/09

From: "Daniel A. Paprocki" <dap@-----.US>
Subj: it "sounds" good, but that won't stand up in court.
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 23:36:50 -0400

It's interesting to note that wood clarinets are organic since they
came from a living tree. Even if all companies made their clarinets
exactly the same in bore and dimensions, there would be very small changes
in dimensions from the different pieces of wood and how they expand,
contract, and absorb moisture on the voyage over, on the shelf, and before
they are played.
As I said in an early posting, there are two subjective things to
take into account on selecting a clarinet; how a clarinet "sounds" to a
player, but more important to a listener, and how a clarinet "feels" to a
player. I think the "feel" part is the most important thing. Is there an
even resistance through the would range? Is the clarinet stuffy or free
blowing? The one important objective thing is tuning when trying a
clarinet. This should be checked with a tuner.
Clarinet tone can be objective if we observe our sound on an
oscilloscope and measure how much of each partial is contained in the
sound. But why? So we can qualify what exactly is a "good" tone?
Clarinet playing is made up very much of an aural tradition. Do we want to
set numerical standards for tone, vibrato, note length, etc. and set up
some grand computer aided clarinet tutor. I can see it now in the year
2050, "who did you study with? Your sound is great! Oh, I studied with
the Ebony 2000 Clarinet Tutor, ver 3.1 !" Is this what we want? Please,
there is nothing wrong with subjectivity - especially in music!

Dan P.(not Dan L.)

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Daniel A. Paprocki
Instructor of Clarinet
Malone College
dap@-----.us

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