Klarinet Archive - Posting 000575.txt from 1997/11

From: SEAN TALBOT <talbotse12@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: Playdough and the clarinet's materials
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 18:14:35 -0500

Lets say you did have an array of clarinets of wood, bamboo, glass, plastic
and metal..........if material doesn't matter, you could get a high quality
tone on all of them that wouldn't change between clarinets? The reality of
the situation seems to be the only way to test this definitively is if you
could have two clarinets of exactly same cut with identical key work that
is of the same mass............and the only change would be the type of
wood or other body material. Heck, two R-13s don't sound the same so I don't
know how it would be possible to make exact duplicates out of two materials.
Maybe this could be done and a playdough clarinet could sound as good as a
$5020.00 Opus. I'll make one out of corkboard so I pin notes to myself
on it as I practice. The vision of a clarinet with grocery lists hanging
off of it would be an interesting sight.
This is a very interesting topic and it reminds me of a PBS special I saw
once about a physics professor that decided to make his hobby the persuit to
unlocking the mysteries of the Strataverious(sp?) violins. Over the years
he has unlocked parts of the mystery and really created the first truely
scientific study of how the violin works........but still all is not known.

Sean Talbot
Unversity of Wisconsin - Whitewater