Klarinet Archive - Posting 000452.txt from 2001/05

From: Neil Leupold <leupold_1@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Clarinet History
Date: Sat, 19 May 2001 09:05:56 -0400

--- "Dee D. Hays" <deehays@-----.net> wrote:

> Also keep in mind that it is not the single reed alone that
> makes a clarinet a clarinet. It is the combination of single
> reed with a cylindrical bore.

You left out something a little more basic and significant: the simple
ability to excite the next set of overtones. Before Denner (or some-
body -- it's not really known) accidentally offset the single reed on
his chalumeau, got a squeak, and discovered an entire new register above,
the clarinet did not exist, no matter what the shape of the bore. I i-
magine most books that discuss the genesis of the clarinet as a distinct
instrument in the woodwind family point to this phenomenon as the defin-
ing moment when the clarinet came into existence (ca. 1700). Then crafts-
men (of which Denner was among the first) began doing it "on purpose",
i.e., developing ways, via a vent mechanism on the body of the instrument,
to excite that next set of overtones on command. Until this process got
underway, the chalumeau was still just a single-register single-reed
instrument, cylindrical bore notwithstanding. It hadn't yet become a
clarinet.

~ Neil

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