Klarinet Archive - Posting 000683.txt from 2002/11

From: "Keith" <100012.1302@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Greenline clarinets
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 23:58:31 -0500

Tim

This is NOT what Benade found and said. I checked to be sure; the
reference is Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics, pp 499-501. What he said
was that the material of the body in general does not vibrate enough to
be a significant component of the energy radiated into the room. But he
found many indirect influences. One experiment he did that shows this,
which anyone can try, is sticking lead tape on different parts of the
clarinet (eg the barrel); this does influence the sound, either way. You
can feel the wall vibration with a finger, anyway. The influences
include: interaction between the wall vibrations (which are larger for a
slightly out-of-round bore) and the air column vibrations; damping of
the vibrations at the surface of the bore; indirect effects such as
ability of the material to take a fine polish, sharp machining, or
carefully rounded tone hole edges to avoid turbulence.

These effects are really complex, and though they can be demonstrated,
they aren't quantified in the sense that a maker can plug a material
properties (wood is variable anyway) into a computer program and predict
the response. I was talking to Stephen Fox about that this week and even
he shuddered at the thought! So all still depends on the maker gaining
experience (and using that of others over the centuries) with a certain
material and design, and making empirical adjustments. This experience
has been gained on very few materials: really only a few woods and
Greenline material for the top line instruments. Remember that Buffet
SET OUT to find how to make a good clarinet from the Greenline
engineered wood composite. The metal and intermediate plastic clarinets
have not had this degree of research and quality effort put in.

The thickness in itself does not lead to higher vibrations, but the
ratio of the thickness to the elastic modulus and density. To zero-th
approximation, if it weighs the same it'll vibrate the same.

We've gone over this quite a few times on the list and you'll find a lot
of stuff in the archives. Mostly myth and assertions, though. The one
undisputed fact is that wood is really beautiful to look at and feel
:-); as Dan Leeson says, I LIKE this and therefore it makes me a better
player!

Keith Bowen

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Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 14:22:47 -0800
From: "Tim Roberts" <timr@-----.com>
Subject: Re: [kl] GreenLine clarinets

On Thu, 14 Nov 2002 16:03:32 -0500, Deidre Calarco
<dleigh@-----.org>
wrote:
>
>>Are there people who think that material (wood vs. plastic vs. metal)
>>doesn't make any difference at all? I've got an old metal clarinet
>>that was given to me by my grandfather, and boy does it ever have a
>>bright sound - almost like a soprano sax!

>Metal is a bit different. In wood and plastic clarinets, the bodies
are so
>thick that they do not vibrate detectably, and if they do not vibrate,
they
>cannot affect the sound. This is documented in Benade's research.

>Metal clarinets are thin enough that the body vibration might be
detectable.
>However, if an aluminum body were of the same thickness as a wood
clarinet,
>there should be no difference.

>That would be an interesting experiment, because a solid metal clarinet
could
>be made with a very, very smooth bore...

--
- Tim Roberts, timr@-----.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

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