Klarinet Archive - Posting 000225.txt from 1998/01

From: "J. Shouryu Nohe" <jnohe@-----.edu>
Subj: A440
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 08:18:29 -0500

I'm gonna go off onna tangent here. Live with it. ^_^

I keep seeing this 'the reed vibrates 440 times a second' stuff...and I
have to say...huh?

Are you SURE the reed vibrates 440 times when we play a concert A? After
this years Musical Physics class, I find that unlikely. The statement
leads to a conclusion that the reed vibrates at different frequencies with
different notes; that most certainly is not the case. The reed vibrates
at a steady, constant frequency of something...I don't know what, but it
remains constant. Notes change due to the length of pipe that the air
vibratess within. The clarinet is what physicists refer to as a closed
pipe system, and the different frequencies we can hear are due to change
within the number of nodes/anti nodes you allow to occur in the pipe. If
you change the length of the pipe (opening and closing holes), in order to
keep those nodes/antinodes, the AIR vibrating compensates by changing
frequency, not the reed. (There's some more stuff having to do with
wavelengths and whole odd intergers...but I already sold my book because I
didn't like the class, and am just happy to have passed it...actually, I
haven't checked my grades yet, so I don't know that I HAVE passed it....)

(Short Sig)
Shouryu Nohe
jnohe@-----.edu/~jnohe
ICQ: 6771552
New Mexico State Univ.