Klarinet Archive - Posting 000894.txt from 1997/05

From: Jonathan Cohler <cohler@-----.net>
Subj: RE: A clarinet
Date: Sat, 31 May 1997 10:12:47 -0400

Dan Leeson wrote [the previous copy of this was somewhat cut off -- no pun
intended]:

>
>Finally, I note with great pleasure you statement that all of this
>important scientific data does not tell use what that "nice dark
>sound" is or how I, as a player, can get that thing; i.e., what
>do I do with my mouth, body, nose, teeth, belly, etc. to improve
>the "darkness" quality?
>
>Are you really sure that darker (=higher cutoff freqency_ and brighter
>(= lower cutoff frequency) has been conclusively proven? Or is that
>there is a difference in character of sound between high and low
>cutoff frequencies, but that difference does not fall in the realm
>of what is generally referred to as "dark" and "bright" whatever
>they mean in the first place?

Dan,

Benade did experiments with wind instruments (clarinets, oboes, bassoons
and others) that were specially engineered to have different cutoff
frequencies. Then musicians were asked to compare like instruments (i.e.
clarinets versus other clarinets) and indicate which ones were darker or
brighter.

The correlation of the musicians use of the terms dark and bright and the
cutoff frequency was extremely high. In Benade's own words (from page 486
of his book):

In recent years, I have measured the cutoff frequencies of clarinets
oboes, and bassoons constructed over a considerable range of history,
using only instruments in good condition which were or are now
played by leading musicians, and which were made by some of the best
craftsmen of their time. Three major conclusions can be drawn from
these measurements:

1. On most of the standard woodwinds, the cutoff frequency remains
roughly the same as tone holes are progressively opened to finger
the notes of the low-register scale.

2. It proves possible to correlate the tone-color adjectives used
used by musicians to describe the overall tone of an instrument
(dark or bright, for instance) with the value of its average
cutoff frequency.

3. Trends in f(c) [the cutoff frequency] on a given instrument run
parallel to trends in the described tone color; furthermore,
anomalies of certain notes on a given instrument can be related
directly to local anomalies in f(c).

By the way, here is another very interesting excerpt from page 488:

I have taken a pair of brand new Bb clarinets (part of a gift made in
support of my research activities by Vito Pascucci and the Leblanc
Corporation) and carefully reworked them so that one has its f(c)
raised by about 3 percent while the other has its f(c) lowered an
equal amount. Both instruments are well tuned and have excellent
response. Players of classical music are very much attracted to the
low-f(c) instrument, while they consider the other clarinet to have
been ruined; serious jazz clarinetists are equally positive in holding
the opposite opinion! Both instruments have been borrowed from time
to time for public performance. We have here a beautiful example of
the way in which good musicians select their instruments to fit
their musical requirements.

---------------------
Jonathan Cohler
cohler@-----.net