Klarinet Archive - Posting 000038.txt from 1998/12

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: [kl] The helionet
Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 04:22:39 -0500

OK, here's an idea for those with workshop facilities and a slightly
offbeat turn of mind.

Breathing in helium is probably something you want to be careful about,
even though there is a work in existence that asks for it. David
Bedford's 'The Garden of Love' contains an effect for what he calls a
'helium girls' choir', where eight to ten girls take a lungful of helium
and sing a very high chord. It's a bit approximate in its aural effect,
but it's visually quite striking, with all the girls clustered round the
helium cylinder, each with her own tube connected to it.

But how about introducing helium into the body of the clarinet while you
were playing it? This could be through the uppermost trill-key hole,
using some sort of rubber bush, perhaps, or through a specially modified
barrel.

Some thoughts:

(1) Does the helium in fact need to be in the mouthpiece, or even the
mouth, for the effect to be significant?

(2) If it is significant enough, what are the constraints on the size
of the pipe that enters the clarinet so that you can play more or
less normally, apart from the pitch change?

(3) Do you need some sort of valve at the clarinet 'end'?

(4) What would be the most sensitive way of controlling the flow of gas
into the system?

(5) What sort of results might we anticipate from the Heifetz of this
instrument?-)

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE
tel/fax 01865 553339

"...his playing soars so freely, one is aware of witchcraft without
noticing a single magical gesture."
(C.D.F.Schubart on the harpsichord playing of C.P.E.Bach)

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