Klarinet Archive - Posting 000272.txt from 1998/01

From: lanewhite@-----.com (Lane G White)
Subj: Re: Mouthpiece Curvature/Tip Closing
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 08:19:16 -0500

On Mon, 5 Jan 1998 20:27:46 -0600 (CST) Roger Garrett
<rgarrett@-----.edu> writes:

>Another thing.....I have an old Kasper that does not have the exact
>same
>curve on each rail....and this test has never worked....even for an
>absolutely flat reed.....but the mouthpiece still plays great.

I would "argue" :-) that your embouchure is compensating for the
difference in this case. The elasticity of your lips would tend to push
both sides of the reed to an equal distance from the rails.

Just to trot out my own "expert" in this matter; I was recently reading
"The Art of Saxophone Playing" (are those hisses I'm hearing?) by Larry
Teal. He cites an April, 1941 article in "The Journal of the Acoustical
Society of America" who "succeeded in photographing the time and motion
of a single reed while in the process of tone production." Teal says the
reed "forms an air tight seal during half of the time of each vibrating
cycle"

I really have no trouble believing this. The amount of back-pressure
present when properly playing a clarinet, especially with a firm reed,
compared with the ease one can blow air through the mouthpiece/reed with
the reed relaxed or even slightly tensed would indicated air stoppage
during the cycle. We just don't perceive the stoppage as such because of
the speed involved.

A demonstration, also from the Teal book, might also give food for
thought. He asks the reader to take a saxophone neck, turn it upside down
relative to the mouthpiece, then play a tone with a piece of tissue paper
over the end. Surprisingly, the paper doesn't blow off when playing as it
would if you blew through it. It floats above the opening. According to
Teal, the air column has very little force when playing, and the sound
waves are what suspends the paper.

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