Klarinet Archive - Posting 000849.txt from 2000/05

From: Don Longacre <nw2v@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Re: Tone -- Neurological
Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 13:46:38 -0400

Bill Hausman writes:

>The nearest thing to "suggestibility" I see in the experiment is that the
>listeners were led to believe there actually ARE defineable characteristics
>such as "dark" and "bright," although they were given no clue at all as to
>what they meant, and were not allowed to compare their ideas with what
>OTHERS might think they meant. Clearly, THEY knew what they THOUGHT the
>terms meant, and so did the players. The complete LACK OF AGREEMENT on
>what they meant is what proves Dan's point.

Bill's comments are, I think, as close as we're ever going to get to a
universality on defining "dark". To shake it apart a bit more, we must
separate out the factor of the inability of a group to arrive at agreement
on "dark/bright" per Dan Leeson's experiment. Throw it away, be done with
it, relegate the search for a definition of dark to the same physcological
cubby-hole as "Why don't false teeth fit everyone? One size fits all?
Why don't you look like me? Why aren't all dogs (and cats out of defference
to Lelia) the same? This is the nub of Dan Leeson's agrument and in it,
I think, he is quite correct. Now, having sent dark to the annals of
mythology (it won't be alone, there are ligatures to keep it company) we can
look to a solid acoustically correct tonal quality that is clarinet sound.
If this puzzles anyone, think like this: Can you differentiate between, say,
a tuba and a trombone? A piccolo and an oboe? Of course you can. I know
I can, without being told who, recognize Harold Wright's sound, Sabine Meyer's,
Stoltzman, Daniels, Goodman, Peplowski, and a host of others. And having heard
them, so can you. Judgementally they all sound great but acoustically
different. I think the term "dark" has come into common use because it tends
to indemnify the user as an insider, proficient in discerning a desired tonal
quality that he/she percieves as acoustically pleasant.

Don Longacre

Mr sulu, activate the flame shields

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