Klarinet Archive - Posting 000078.txt from 2000/05

From: Mark Thiel <thielm@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Bells & whistles
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 06:15:13 -0400

Paulplaysclarinet@-----.com writes:

<< I think that the bell also affects the overtone series in each of
your
notes... I read somewhere that the overtones on the clarinet get
progressively flatter the higher you go, and that is the reason that
when
you play louder, you tend to go flat: as your total volume increases,
so
does the volume of flat overtones.

and Teri Herel writes:
<<The overtone series of the clarinet has little to do with the bell,
and much
to do with the general shape and method of tone production of the
instrument.

But the bell is very much part of the (modified) cylindrical shape of
the bore,
and certainly not just a sound radiator. Arthur Benade said (and I
think wrote in
Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics) that one of the main purposes of the
bell is to make the lower notes (of each register) sound like the
others. A typical
note will emanate mainly from the first hole opened in the bore and the
first
2 or 3 farther down. The bell is supposed to make the end notes sound
more like this lattice
of open holes and less like the sound you get if the clarinet is sawed
off square
at the length needed to produce a note.

Re: clarinets going flat when loud. Benade had a clarinet which he
modified so
that it would go FLAT when QUIET. (This was ~30 years ago.) One of his

favorite things to do was to hand it to a clarinettist and ask them to
play
a dimenuendo. He would always be ready to catch the clarinet when it
was
dropped in utter shock. Of course this wasn't just a toy; it was
serious research
to see if he could cure this very real problem. Unfortunately he found
that
you can't really make the pitch more consistent over dynamics without
making other compromises -- like mainly the tuning between registers if
I remember correctly.

Mark Thiel

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org