Klarinet Archive - Posting 000190.txt from 2000/05

From: Mark Thiel <thielm@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Bells & whistles
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 07:30:01 -0400

>
>Mark Thiel wrote:
>>But the fact that clarinets use odd harmonics seems to me to be a
>> very minor factor in all the complications of getting a clarinet
>> in tune.
>
>The clarinet has strong even harmonics, which indicate it is a
>far cry from the theoretical closed pipe.
>
>Mark Charette@-----.org
>

Sure, the even harmonics, and a bunch of other things, make it act
differently.
I suppose if a clarinet really acted like a purely thoretical pipe it
wouldn't
sound much like a clarinet.

However usually we try to produce notes corresponding to odd harmonics.
mostly the fundamental; the twelfth, which is pretty darn close
to a well-tempered twelfth; the 5th harmonic at 2 octaves and a major
third is farther from the well-tempered equivalent; and the 7th
which is right between 2 octaves + a major 6th or a minor 7th --
but we use it anyway.

At any rate almost all winds (except song flutes, racketts and
ocarinas?)
use various overtones of the harmonic series -- and cope somehow.
And if anyone thinks clarinetists have it bad, read the chapter in
Benade's
_Horns, Strings, and Harmony_ on trumpets. Brasses pretend that
they're conical but any horn with valves or a slide necessarily
has large chunks of conical pipe in them.

Mark Thiel

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