Klarinet Archive - Posting 000600.txt from 2000/11

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] Fantastique or catastrophe?
Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2000 05:31:42 -0500

On Fri, 17 Nov 2000 23:53:40 -0800, gir@-----.net said:

> Michael wrote:
>
> > Would a black shoe-lace yield a "darker" tone?
>
> Darker tone? No.

Ah, you *did* get around to trying it out for yourself, then.
Congratulations!-)

> But it would be appropriate for the more formal occasions, or
> funerals, or divorce or orchestra bankruptcies.

In this context, I'm ashamed to say that I used *white* nylon cord for
the Witches' Sabbath.

Highly inappropriate. (*White* magic, indeed!)

By the way, I think I should point out that the pitch modification I'm
talking about is less than 5 vibrations around 440 Hz, which is about an
eighth of a tone. Moving a clarinet a semitone lower is a much more
radical thing to do, and I personally doubt that this technique was ever
used for such a thing. Most 'period' players, including myself, use it
for these very small modifications only as a last resort. In general,
we use different instruments for different periods, and we've more or
less arbitrarily standardised the pitches, as I've mentioned here
before.

The legend that you could change a Bb clarinet into an A clarinet
satisfactorily possibly arose because people haven't routinely needed to
alter the pitch of an instrument by a few vibrations in modern times --
until the period performance movement, that is. So Bb to A perhaps
seemed the only conceivable use for the 'string' technique.

Does anyone happen to know when and where the technique is first
mentioned in the literature? Or if indeed it is mentioned?

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE GMN family artist: www.gmn.com
tel/fax 01865 553339

... I want everything; do you have it??

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