Klarinet Archive - Posting 001055.txt from 2003/03

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Cylinders vs. Cones
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 03:33:37 -0500

In message <000701c2f36c$a1815360$06202cd5@-----.org writes:
> My point (well, Mr Ferron's point, actually) was that not all cones overblow
> at the octave, and most cones hardly overblow at all. (In fact, they hardly
> blow).
>
> Mr Ferron was not proposing that non-overblowing cones are useful,
> he was just demonstrating their existance and explaining why.
> I thought this relevant in the context.
>
> Maybe everybody but me had already understood this. Still, it leaves me
> perplexed. Who first discovered the "right" cone that made octaves
> possible?
> Surely not a theoretician ! Since discovering the right cone by trial
> and error seems a difficult job, why was the cylindrical clarinet "invented"
> after the oboe ?
>
> Sorry if this thread is over by the time you get this; I'm another of those
> people who cannot read their mail in real time.
>
> Alan
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "B. Rite" <b1rite@-----.net>
> To: <klarinet@-----.org>
> Sent: Monday, March 24, 2003 4:19 PM
> Subject: Re: [kl] Cylinders vs. Cones
>
>
> <><> Alan Woodcock wrote:
> 50 + 55 = 105 Hz
> 150 + 55 = 205 Hz
> 250 + 55 = 305 Hz etc
>
> "The instrument will be mistuned and difficult to play [snip] So in
> summary: Not all cones overblow at the octave.
>
>
>
> I guess I miss the point here. It is possible (and usually
> inescapable) to build any instrument a bit out of tune because of
> physical practicalities. End effects do exist because an instrument
> cannot be infinitely long (in the real world), air has inertia, a
> mouthpiece cannot be perfectly conical or cylindrical, the reed or
> player's breath creates an "elastic" boundary, etc etc etc.
>
> Many instruments have intentional 'restrictions' (narrowing of bore)
> even though, by definition) this violates a perfect cylinder or cone.
> These restrictions are necessary in order to cope with a mouthpiece's
> "irregular" shape. to cope with the "elastic" boundary, etc etc etc.
>
> Clearly the principle of "octave or twelfth" can be violated in many
> ways. The topic of this thread has been to examine one particular
> violation (combination of violations, actually) which --- as it turns
> out --- also destroys much of the instrument's otherwise playable scale.
> It's questionable, therefore, whether you can even call a device with
> this particular violation(s) an "instrument" at all.
>
> Cheers,
> Bill
>
>
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