Klarinet Archive - Posting 000094.txt from 1999/07

From: BlueNote83@-----.com
Subj: Re: [kl] sax trouble
Date: Sun, 4 Jul 1999 15:56:48 -0400

In a message dated 7/4/99 2:34:30 PM Central Daylight Time,
kwolman@-----.net writes:

<<
>>The characteristic clarinet sound derives from its acting acoustically as a
>>cylindrical pipe closed at one end driven by a single beating reed. This
is
>>why plastic, wood, and metal clarinets all sound like clarinets rather than
>>any other instrument.
>>
>Of course, plastic oboes also sound like oboes, and wood flutes like
>flutes. I don't believe I have ever actually heard a Grafton plastic
>saxophone, but I suspect it sounds pretty much like a sax. Your point, of
>course, is valid: it is the design, not the material, that determines the
>sound.

I think it was the jazz musician Ornette Coleman who got into experimenting
with a plastic sax sometime in the 1950s. I cannot listen to his music
long enough to figure out what he got from a plastic horn as opposed to one
made of metal, but he must've heard something in the sound that he felt he
needed, and that he could not get from a regulation saxophone.

Ken >>
Charlie Parker experimented with the Plastic saxophone earlier though.

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