Klarinet Archive - Posting 000107.txt from 2002/11

From: "William Semple" <wsemple@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] This thing on my front door
Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 11:24:52 -0500

What is different about what I said and what you said, except that I did so
in one paragraph? I said in effect that the clarinet was the type of system
which was impossible to consider except as a whole, all elements
contributing to the sound having equal influence.

But I disagree with you and Tony, because it flies in the face of common
sense and logic. What you are asserting is that because there is a necessary
relationship between two entities (the lock and the key), neither can be
more important than the other -- by definition, because the clarinet cannot
exist without all of the pieces affixed, all of the pieces must be equally
important.

That's not what I am saying. I am not saying the embouchure is absolutely
more important than the bell of the instrument; I am saying it is relatively
more important.
The instrument, in my construct, is not divided up as you would have been
axe it.

Before I go on, your reference to Hi-Fi is wrong. Resistance, e.g., as
measured in ohms, is an important construct to the quality of a signal.
Certain types of amplifiers drive planar speakers more efficiently, and
effectively, than other types. Transistor amps have traditionally been
regarded as providing "tighter" bottom ends than tube amps. Some circuits
employ negative feedback, although many designers avoid this because of the
distortion this can cause. One of the key issues facing circuit designers is
how to step up a signal without contributing distortion (ergo., the straight
wire theory), caused in some measure by the resistance in the circuit.

Nevertheless, as an audio reviewer, I can tell you where the most important
contribution occurs in the playback of music. It is what is recorded on the
disk. S-- in, S-- out.

Back to the axe, so to speak. Everyone who has disagreed with me so far
assumes I am chopping up the clarinet. I am not. Not once in this discussion
did I ever disclaim the notion that the clarinet was not an integrated unit.
Of course one can't dissemble the instrument, literally or figuratively.

But "integration," per se, is not a sufficient condition to persuade me that
pieces of it can't be gauged with regard to their relative (sic., more)
importance.

I am not talking about absolutes here, I am taking about the relative
importance of various aspects of the instrument with regard to outcomes. Not
perfect outcomes. Variable outcomes. We can argue the order, but what I am
arguing is the concept whereby it is logically and intuitively permissible
to state that the embouchure in general is more important to the
contribution of the quality of sound than the bell of a clarinet.

That doesn't mean the relationship between the embouchure and the rest of
the clarinet is static. As a player gets to Tony Pay's capabilities, other
issues will surface that are more important to him. But remember, he has
already established his embouchure at an extremely high level. It still
remains important, and I assert, the most important aspect to his tone (and
when I speak of embouchure, I use the phrase metonymically, speaking about
him as a player).

Whether knowing any of this is important or useful is irrelevant here.

If I can get agreement with this, then perhaps I have the proverbial camel's
nose under the tent. But I doubt that even this example, prima facie, will
persuade. Give Tony's clarinet to a beginner, with "bells" and "whistles"
attached and it will sound like crap. Give the beginner's instrument to
Tony, and I bet he can get some results.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph Wakeling" <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subject: Re: [kl] This thing on my front door

> > I think I get it. Cheers if I do.
>
> This is a bit of a late reply, but: I'm not sure you do get it.
>
> > You, Tony, and others are asserting that the
> > clarinet is by definition a closed system
> > (e.g., the lock and key) wherein the variables
> > of the chain are so inextricably linked that the
> > relative contribution of each variable is
> > impossible to determine except in terms of
> > the specific system as a whole and in the
> > instance under examination.
>
> For starters, the term "closed system" is entirely inappropriate here for
> reasons that others have already mentioned. But what you really don't
seem
> to get, and the main point of what I understand Tony Pay's comments to
mean,
> is that the clarinet and clarinettist *together* form *one system*, and
only
> one.
>
> This chopping it up into different parts - mouth cavity, embouchure,
> mouthpiece, barrel, body, bell - is entirely artificial. It may not seem
> artificial, because you can take your clarinet and pull it apart into
these
> pieces, but it *is* really. After all, if you go back in the clarinet's
> history, mouthpiece and barrel came in one piece. Further back, lower
joint
> and bell were one piece. Further back still, the reed was a part of the
> mouthpiece. And even if you just want to talk about the modern
instrument,
> you can't remove any of those individual bits without destroying the whole
> system. All these pieces are *essential*. You can't take any of them out
> of the system and still produce music.
>
> Now, as to whether there is a hierarchy: it's very easy to start by
> thinking, "Well, the vibration starts with the reed. Then it goes into
the
> mouthpiece, then the barrel, then the body, then the bell..." and to think
> that each of these parts takes what came before and adds or subtracts from
> it. But as Tony has pointed out this simply isn't what happens
physically.
> The vibration occurs *simultaneously* throughout the length of the
> instrument (and the player's oral cavity). All the different parts - oral
> cavity, embouchure, reed, mouthpiece, barrel, body, bell - which you
choose
> to divide the instrument into, all act *simultaneously* to shape this
> vibration.
>
> So there isn't a hierarchy in any conventional sense. As I've mentioned
in
> an earlier post, reeds that work badly with one mouthpiece may work well
> with another. A mouthpiece may work well or badly with a given
instrument,
> and yet both might work well with other equipment. The generation of a
good
> sound is the result of parts that *interact* well. It's not like a hi-fi
> where the signal comes out of one component in a fixed state which is then
> modified by the next component and so on; in clarinet playing the effect
of
> parts further down the instrument affect how the parts further up work,
and
> vice versa.
>
> The other thing that one finds as a player, of course, is that it's a hell
> of a lot more troublesome finding a good mouthpiece than a good instrument
> (for example), and a hell of a lot more difficult to find a good reed than
a
> good mouthpiece. So it's easy to fall into the trap of saying, "Well, the
> reed makes more difference than the mouthpiece, which makes more
difference
> than the instrument. And developing a good embouchure is more difficult
> still, so that's more important than any of them." Another hierarchy of
> importance, one might think. But actually all we're really finding out
here
> is that we're just better at designing bells and instrument bodies than we
> are at reeds; and in the case of mouthpieces, you have to have something
> which is sympathetic both to the instrument and the oral cavity, so the
> definition of what is "good" immediately becomes subjective.
>
> If there was something *wrong* with your barrel or your bell, you'd know
> about it. It's just that, because we're better at manufacturing these
> things than we are reeds, you're much less likely to have such a problem.
> Indeed, if there's something wrong with *any* part of the system - oral
> cavity, embouchure, reed, mouthpiece ... - the whole system is in trouble.
> All these parts have to be working to produce the result we want.
Certainly
> a good professional will make a nicer sound on a student instrument than a
> beginner will make on a top professional instrument. But s/he probably
> won't make a sound that's good enough for performance. And your beginner
> with the Buffet Prestige may not sound nice now, but will have a good
chance
> of getting better fast, because they won't have problems with the
equipment
> holding them back. It's worth remembering that part of the reason top
> players have such good embouchure control is because they play on
> instruments that respond to this. You can't learn a good embouchure on a
> bad instrument because the chances are you'll have to put in place lots of
> compromises to compensate for the instrument's shortcomings.
>
> The end result is that *all* the parts that we choose to divide instrument
> and player into are *100% important*. A genuine shortcoming in *any* of
> them is a shortcoming in the *whole* system. On the other hand what is
much
> more common is not that there is anything inherently "wrong" with any of
the
> individual pieces but that the particular way they have been combined is
at
> fault. It's certainly *cheaper* and probably easier to try and correct
such
> faults, first with the embouchure, then with the reed, then mouthpiece,
and
> so on. But that doesn't mean that this is necessarily the *best* way to
> approach a given problem with the system; and it certainly doesn't give us
> any order of importance.
>
> -- Joe
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>

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