Klarinet Archive - Posting 000328.txt from 1996/11

From: Franck Laloe <laloe@-----.fr>
Subj: Re: Rough, smooth, dark, bright-Who?
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 14:01:54 -0500

At 13:25 15/11/96 UT, you wrote:
>Is it Bonade (as in the ligature) or Benade? (see below)
>You wrote:
>"As I have posted before, this (the statement about dark and light) is not
>true in the relative sense. Certainly, there is no good definition of dark
>and light absolutely. But "darker" and "lighter" (or "brighter") ARE well
>defined as has been experimentally proven by Bonade in his work on the
>cutoff frequency of wind instruments."
>
>David C. Blumberg
>Reedman@-----.com
>
Yes it is Art Benade, who unfortunately is dead now. A very nice person
indeed (I met him on a few occasions). His books are a mixture of very
interesting things (he basically invented this notion of cutoff frequency,
but he did other wonderful things too, in particular in rediscovering the
notion of impedance peak cooperation) and somewhat doubtful statements. It
may be true that the cutoff frequency is one of the parameters entering the
bright/dark color of a tone, but there are so many others! personally I do
not consider this a a scientific fact at all. The science of musical
perception is very complicated. Maybe htis is why music is so interesting?
Best wishes franck
Franck Laloe, labo de physique de l'ENS, 24 rue Lhomond, F75005 Paris (France)
tel 33 (1) 47 07 54 13, fax 45 35 00 76 -- laloe at physique.ens.fr