Klarinet Archive - Posting 000643.txt from 2000/10

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] A vs. Bb -- spectral graph
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 04:17:25 -0400

The difficulty with this whole point of view is that the relationship
between different sub-species of clarinet has clearly varied over the
years and between models. I respect what Dan L. says - in pronicple - but
there would be (and wold have been) rather a lot of diversity for
composers to take into account.
Benade's (Was it?) discovery that early classical C clarinets had in fact
a *lower* cut-off frequency that either the As or the B flats from the
period he looked at must be relevant - just for a start.

Roger S.

On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, Daniel Leeson wrote:

> Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 09:38:36 -0700
> From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
> Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] A vs. Bb -- spectral graph
>
> Womderful posting Bill. I thank you for it. However, I don't think
> that the discussion on this subject argued that there was NO difference
> in character between the A and B-flat. If I remember correctly, there
> was general agreement that such a difference did exist.
>
> What was being argued was that composers selected a clarinet on the
> basis of that difference; i.e., it was the causative factor the resulted
> in a specific clarinet being chose. And it was I who suggested that
> that was not the case, but rather that the selection was based on other,
> in fact, technical and objective reasons. It was even further said (and
> by me) that once the selection was made, composers might take advantage
> of the character difference between clarinets by writing music that was
> more idiomatic for the selected instrument, but this decision was made
> after the fact and not before.
>
> But I don't think that anyone denied that a character difference
> existed. (I might carp at the use of the word "color" difference and
> you will notice that I have been careful to use the equally vague
> "character," but with that minor caveat, I think I have correctly stated
> what was the center of the discussion on this matter a few days ago.)
>
> William Wright wrote:
> >
> > A few days ago, I promised to search through Benade's larger book
> > (Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics) for the graph which demonstrates --
> > assuming equal embouchures and wind pressures and so forth -- that A and
> > Bb clarinets produce different tone colors for the same note.
> >
> > The graph is figure 22.9 in section 22.5 of Chapter 22, "The
> > Woodwinds: II". This graph shows cutoff frequencies, which Benade
> > proposes as the most meaningful numerical index of tone color, rather
> > than showing a full graph of the partials. Thus my memory wasn't
> > perfect in every detail, but the graph shows clearly (IMO and in
> > Benade's opinion also) that the overtone ratios and hence the tone color
> > of the same note are different between A and Bb clarinets when all other
> > conditions are equal.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Bill
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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> --
> ***************************
> ** Dan Leeson **
> ** leeson0@-----.net **
> ***************************
>
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>

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