Klarinet Archive - Posting 000283.txt from 2002/01

From: David Oakley <guiomarks@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Benade Clarinet Mouthpiece Overblowing at the Octave?
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 16:40:28 -0500

Did Benade work out any rule of thumb for determining how conical a pipe had to
be before it acts like a cone and overblows the octave? I've been curious about
this ever since I realized the clarinet is not a true cylinder.

David Oakley

PS: I suppose I should introduce myself. I'm a returnee to the clarinet-- played
in grade school and junior high, have returned after an absence of many years,
this time for fun. I worked in underwater acoustics for about 15 years, so
acoustical technicalities are not a complete foreign language. It was always
interesting to hear the musical and psycho-acoustic researchers make
presentations at Acoustical Society conferences. I was fascinated by Carleen
Hutchins' Violin Octet.

Doug Sears wrote:

> I think the oboe-reed plus clarinet combination overblows (approximately) at
> the octave because the overall shape is more like a cone than a cylinder.
> Reed end: very small. Bell end: large. The part in between is like a very
> lumpy cone, if you think of it as a cone, and so you'd expect some terrible
> intonation problems. BTW, the Turkish zurna is built along those lines:
> double reed on a conical staple, then a cylindrical section where the
> fingerholes are, and a flaring bell. It overblows approximately at the
> octave.
>
> Benade wrote about the flute/clarinet combination in _Fundamentals of Musical
> Acoustics_, Chapter 22.6, "B. Implications of Putting a Flute Head Joint onto
> a Clarinet" (p. 490 in the Dover edition).
>
> Besides these two combination instruments, though, I'm pretty sure the
> original post was correct about a "clarinet" that overblows at the octave.
> It's not in _Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics_, but in one of Benade's
> papers, and involved a very strange register hole. I'll see if I can find the
> article.
>
> --Doug
>
> Dan Leeson wrote:
>
> >I have also reported on this list as early as 5 years ago that a
> >clarinet with a cork in the upper end of the barrel and which cork had a
> >hole in it with an oboe reed inserted there overblew an octave.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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