Klarinet Archive - Posting 000485.txt from 2002/04

From: "Don Yungkurth" <clarinet@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Logical Bassoon (was Octave repeaters vs. Twelfth repeaters)
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 10:14:58 -0400

Rick Campbell wrote (huge cuts made):

>>>. . . . . . . . Someday there will be an improved clarinet which
is easier to play, and more popular . . . . . . . . <<<

This reminded me of an article I found about 25 or 30 years ago in the "New
Scientist":

Change of Wind

The case for a Logical Bassoon

The cheerful burbling of the bassoon is about the most easily identifiable
sound of the orchestra; but it also the trickiest of the woodwind
instruments to play, with great difficulties both of fingering and constant
intonation. To make life easier for the bassoon-blower, Giles Brindley,
professor of physiology in the University of London, has redesigned the
instrument, producing a "logical bassoon" in which the pads are pulled away
from the air holes by electromagnets controlled by logic circuits. Simple
rewiring can adapt the whole thing to suit the player's preferences for
particular fingering.

On Radio 3 a prototype logical bassoon was put through its paces by William
Waterhouse, a bassoonist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, who alternated it
with his own instrument in a blow-by-blow contest, with Professor Brindley
commenting. Unlike the normal bassoon, which has a conical bore, the
logical bassoon is square in cross-section, making it a very elongated
pyramid. It has refinements such as a heater wire which can be used to tune
it in damp or chilly weather - Mr. Waterhouse said he found it rather
alarming to have hot air shooting back at him through the reed. A point by
John Warrack, the music critic who refereed the contest, was that certain
passages were written deliberately for their difficulty, and though using a
logical bassoon might not be cheating, it was certainly running close to the
wind. And in fact Mr. Waterhouse clipped a few seconds off a speedy passage
of Scheherazade with it.

By the end of the programme it seemed unlikely that the logical bassoon was
destined to supercede the trad' bassoon. As a standard work on musical
instruments says, the bassoon has "a characteristic tone quality that has
always proved extremely sensitive to attempts at acoustically more rational
construction", and the fingering does not worry the professionals anyway.
Meanwhile Professor Brindley is looking ahead to a logical clarinet, with a
transposing switch which will save the player from the need to have the
usual pair of instruments, in A and B flat.

Don Yungkurth (clarinet@-----.net)

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