Klarinet Archive - Posting 001056.txt from 2003/03

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Cylinders vs. Cones
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 03:36:39 -0500

Cylindrical and conical reed instruments have probably co-existed for millennia.
For instance, East European bagpipes mostly have cyclindrical chanters, whereas
Scottish, Irish and Galician examples have conical chanters. There are and have been other folk reed instruments of both types.
Roger S.

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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--
Cet animal est méchant. Quand on l'attaque, il se défend.
---- Alleged sign in French zoo.

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