Klarinet Archive - Posting 000294.txt from 1997/01

From: Robert Sales <rs@-----.uk>
Subj: FW: How much opinion vs. how much fact
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 04:49:17 -0500

Isn't the implication of Dan's last remark that a b flat clarinet with
the low e flat extension would sound pretty much identical to an a
clarinet ? I don't know if this is actually the case, but I assume that
the two cylinders of wood are very similar.

Robert Sales

Micro Focus Ltd.
Tel. +44 (0)1635 565265
Fax. +44(0)1635 565456
Email fs@-----.uk

>----------
>From: Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU]
>Sent: 20 January 1997 19:54
>To: Multiple recipients of list KLARINET
>Subject: Re: How much opinion vs. how much fact
>
>> From: MX%"EWOJ@-----.02
>> Subj: Re: How much opinion vs. how much fact
>
>> Why is it that we can believe that there is a sonic difference between an A
>> and B flat clarinet, when it seems that we cannot accept that there can be
>>a
>> difference between a German and a French clarinet and therefore, the sound
>> that is made from each?
>>
>> Dan Leeson states:
>> >Clarinetists (in general, all instrumentalists) have no
>> business making arbitrary substitution of one pitched
>> instrument for another, particularly in the face of an
>> explicit request on the part of a composer with an
>> unusually good ear, which is what Brahms is reported to
>> have. When arbitrary substitutions are made, the impact
>> on the sonic palette that the composer hears when s/he
>> composes is altered to some unknown degree. And if one
>> can substitute an A clarinet for some other pitched
>> instrument with impunity, why not a tenor saxophone for
>> a clarinet in B-flat, or an English horn for a basset
>> horn?
>
>Very easily!! The sound character of a clarinet is derived from
>the physics of the instrument. So a longer clarinet (with a
>slight bore variation) will sound differently than a shorter
>clarinet. And to that extent a B-flat clarinet sounds differently
>than an A clarinet just as a bass clarinet sounds differently than
>an E-flat soprano clarinet, just much more so.
>
>But the sound character of an instrument is not a function of the
>nationality of the player, despite assertions to the contrary.
>
>There may be educational principles that result in German and
>French players producing different sound character (such as
>a Frenchman playing a French horn or bassoon, as distinct from
>a German playing a French horn or bassoon). And this probably
>has some affect on the sound character produced but nearly to
>the extent that it is reported to have; i.e., where people will
>advertise that they are trying to get "the French sound," or
>that so-and-so has that "German sound."
>
>Finally this: where the holes are punched onto a cylinder of wood
>and where the keys are placed to control mechanisms that cover
>and uncover those holes has almost no affect on the sound character.
>So a German system B-flat sounds (in my opinion) very much like
>a French system B-flat because both cylinders of wood are
>essentially the same.
>
>
>
>====================================
>Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
>(leeson@-----.edu)
>====================================
>