Klarinet Archive - Posting 000555.txt from 1998/07

From: ROBERT HOWE <arehow@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Re: Left hand Eb/Bb key
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 00:39:26 -0400

Re: my recent posting and Teri Herel's reply, Teri, please keep your
figurative hat on. No disrespect is intended, ever, in my postings. If
I want to be rude, I write privately. My style is pointed and I like it
that way and I won't apologize, as no one else seems to know the
relevant passage!! (now watch, the next 12 writers will show that I
misquoted Mazzeo...)

Every serious clarinet student should read Mazzeo, and Baines, and
Stein, and Rice, and Brymer, and Gibson, and Lawson, and Rehfeldt, and
Bok, and other basic books about the clarinets. That is how we learn.
Practicing scales only gives you technique, not understanding. Would
you want me to operate on you if I had only assisted in surgeries
without every cracking the anatomy and physiology texts??

I've a background in woodwind acoustics--not in general physics,
alas--and will go head to head with anyone (except Doug Keefe or Nick
Shackleton ((also a physicist/clarinettist)) or John Backus or Cornelius
Vanderneeden) on the subject. I may lose, but thats half the fun. If you
are interested in the details behind my complaint about the doubled key,
look at Galpin Society Journal March 1996, "Physics of a New Clarinet
Design" by Benade and Keefe.

H. F. Meyer in Hanover invented a little device to open a single tone
hole with two touches, such as I propose using--in 1860. It was
standard equipment on German oboes of the last and early 20th centuries,
and is present on a Heckel oboe d'amore that I own, made in 1948.
Hallo, Monsieur Buffet?

Regards, Robert Howe

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