Klarinet Archive - Posting 000792.txt from 1997/10

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: Lacy's long reply to Dan Leeson's long answer to Gary Young's long and philosophical question!
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 12:38:46 -0400

On Fri, 17 Oct 1997, Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu wrote:

Well, he wrote a very great deal on this topic, and much of it made a lot
of sense. Let's see if we can reduce the size of the reply to Dan's
intellectually stimulating philosophizing by stipulating that there are a
number of ideas expressed there with which we can all agree.

First, I'm sure that every musician would recognize the fantastic rhetoric
in LeBlanc's advertising as nothing more than some misguided advertising
executive's hype. I think we need not concern ourselves too much with it.
For the most part, even students wouldn't fall for it, and fortunately,
they ususally have the advice of a teacher when they buy instruments.

I would also agree that some people, conductors in particular, rely
entirely too heavily on such adjectives when asking for a particular
effect. I have always enjoyed the story of the conductor who turned to
the violins and said, "Your tone needs to be more _orange_." To which the
concertmaster is said to have replied, "You want us to play louder, or
what?" I once played under a conductor who told us that we should play
Beethoven's fifth symphony "like smiling through a veil of tears." I
confess I have never figured out what he wanted us to do.

But, now on to more difficult matters, and ones on which we may not so
easily come to an agreement.

> For example, I need to be able to describe the specific and
> objective differences between sound quality and sound character.
> On a superficial level, I think of sound character as the thing
> that enables me to know that a clarinet is playing, even when the
> sound quality is awful. The minute I hear that sound I know I am
> not hearing an oboe or a flute or a tuba. A much more difficult
> notion is that of sound quality, mostly because we speak about it
> in so many ways.

Like many other of your messages have done, Dan, this one sent me to my
dictionaries. This time I am looking in Webster's New World Dictionary,
3rd edition. Here are a few definitions from it.

1. Quality: def. 2: basic nature; character; kind. Among the synonyms
of "Quality" we find, "Character;" the scientific or formal term for a
distinctive or peculiar quality of an individual or of a class, species,
etc.

2. Character: def. 5: adistinctive trait, quality, or attribute;
def. 6: essential quality; nature, kind or sort. Among the synonyms of
"Character" we find, "Quality."

I'm suggesting that these two terms are sufficiently eqivalent in meaning
that it would be well not to confuse the issue by trying to give each a
new definition in order to make then serve the current discussion. This
seems to me to be inviting still further complications in an already
complicated dilemma.

> And the point of the above paragraph is to nail down the notion
> that no word or collection of words can or will ever be able to
> describe the quality of clarinet sound that you want to achieve or
> that you want your students to achieve.

Well, while we are in the dictionary, let's try one more definition.

3. Color: def. 13: general nature; character. def. 14: vivid quality
or character. def. 18: (music) timbre, as of a voice or instrument. (EL:
So, notice that "character" and "quality" are both used in the definition
of "color.")

My point is that we as musicians _do_ use adjectives relating to what we
call "color" of tone. These adjectives are not precise as to meaning, but
like all words in a language, take on their meaning according to how
people use them. There are no etymological police (except in French) who
are telling us how words should be used or what they should mean. So,
languages evolve, and I'm sorry to say that trying to resist such
evolution is like tilting at windmills. So, there is no denying that
musicians have for decades, possibly for centuries, used terms like
"light, bright, dark, full, rich," etc., etc., to describe particular
types of tone qualities. If we had 100 clarinetists in a room, and had
two different clarinet players to perform for them, I would wager that it
wouldn't be too difficult for them to determine whether one of them had a
"darker" tone than the other one. Further, I expect that agreement among
the 100 listeners would be rather general.

But, (and here is where I think we may further part company) when we say
that a particular sound has a particular characteristic, for the most part
these qualities are quantifiable. The trait which makes it possible to
distinguish between a certain pitch being played on a clarinet, or a
trumpet, or a piano, or a human voice, is called its "harmonic structure."
This is the same trait which makes it possible to distinuish between two
different clarinet sounds, even on the same pitch.

The term "harmonic structure" relates to the presence or absence of
certain overtones in the sound, and their relative strength. Any musical
tone can be analyzed in this manner, and can be represented graphically.
It can easily be seen by looking at such graphic representations that the
clarinet has a different harmonic structure than the trumpet or the oboe,
for example. Similarly, two different clarinet players, whether playing
on two different clarinets or on the same one while testing the same
pitch, will produce graphs with slightly different charactieristics,
although the differences will not be so great as in the case of two
entirely separate instruments.

I think Dan is on the right track in trying to make us think about and be
able to justify our descriptive statements concerning clarinet tone. I am
suggesting that the means already exist for being able to be more concrete
in this regard. Complicated as the understanding of that method may be,
it seems to me to be less complicated than trying to invent new, subtle
refinements of definitions of existing terms.

Ed Lacy
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Dr. Edwin Lacy University of Evansville
Professor of Music 1800 Lincoln Avenue
Evansville, IN 47722
el2@-----.edu (812)479-2754
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