Klarinet Archive - Posting 000112.txt from 1996/10

From: "James M. Pyne" <jpyne@-----.EDU>
Subj: Barrel designs
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 14:37:40 -0400

> > A friend told me they saw an ad, in the Music Educators Journal, for the
> > Click Tuning Barrel. I think I've seen it advertised elsewhere, too.
> >
> > If it works, it should solve a lot of my problems. Has anyone tried it
> > yet?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > John Armstrong
> > johna17@-----.com
Are these just straight barrels or do they bored to support the
acoustics of the horn in some manner(like the moennig)?

Dick

------------------------------------------------

Dick Walters raises an important point. The taper (usually reverse) of the
barrel is essential in tuning the difficult "spread" or too-wide 12ths
between registers of the clarinet. Additionally the barrel bore dimensions
are very sensitive. Differences of as little as .001-.002 in bore taper or
overall diameter of bore can be felt by the performer and heard, both in
timbre and in the focus of pitch relationships.

The current Moennig bore taper is one of the better solutions for many
fairly recent mouthpiece/clarinet combinations. A problem, especially with
current wooden barrels, can be warpage that distorts the very sensitive
bore dimensions. This is caused by the utilization of unstable wood.
Properly prepared, high quality Blackwood is less available than in the
past. The older Moennig barrels, such as those provided with my original
set of Buffets (=40 yrs old) were quite stable and somewhat different in
taper from the newer "Moennig", but excellent none the less, when combined
with certain mouthpiece internal taper designs.

I have done a great deal of research, including blind listening tests by
professional performers, on barrels produced by myself from a variety of
synthetic materials. This testing included plastic and metal materials that
colored the sound in ways that were perceived to be unmusical. The process
however has yielded a material that is very stable and that mimics the tone
quality of fine Blackwood with great success. Barrels of this material,
carefully bored, perform uniformly through weather and seasonal changes.

Finally the barrel must serve as a proper interface between the out-taper
of the mouthpiece and the in-taper of the top joint of the clarinet proper.
The design of the generative system down to about the position of the
register vent hole is the most critical area of the clarinet bore for both
tone quality and intonation. Great care must be given to the particular
barrel and mouthpiece combined with any given instrument design. In this
sense it is impossible to provide one barrel that is best for all
instrument designs and all mouthpiece/clarinet combinations.

James Pyne
Pyne/Clarion, Inc.
1-800-JPYNE-440