Klarinet Archive - Posting 001130.txt from 1999/07

From: Larry Paikin <larrypaikin@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] [Fwd: Altisimmo squeaks]
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 22:42:39 -0400

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Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 13:14:09 -0400
Subject: Altisimmo squeaks
From: "Charles Maurer" <maurerc@-----.CA>
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Larry, you might want to send this to your clarinet e-mail list.

--

One of the advantages of rarely playing and never practising is that
problems can easily be ignored. My squeaking in the altissimo register, for
instance. It took me several years to become annoyed enough to try to stop
it.

These last few weeks, however, I found myself working on the Prokofiev
Quintet. This has enough high notes to puncture an ear drum even when they
are played cleanly, and I could not play them cleanly. Nothing I did with
fingers, breath, reeds or embouchure would keep the racket away.

Finally the penny dropped. A squeak is caused by vibrations in unstable
equilibrium. It is a chaotic phenomenon in both the normal sense of the
term and the mathematical. Chaotic phenomena tend to be caused by
asymmetries. I should seek the cause in an asymmetry of what forms the
vibrations, in the reed and mouthpiece. Reeds had proven to have no
influence but the mouthpiece....

Sure enough, I found an asymmetry in the mouthpiece. Salts from my saliva
had built up unevenly around the tip. Removing them put things to rights.

--

Charles Maurer
5 Grandview Court
Dundas, Ontario
Canada L9H 5C8
Telephone: (905) 627-7035
Fax: (905) 627-8494

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