Klarinet Archive - Posting 000555.txt from 2003/04

From: b1rite@-----. Rite)
Subj: Re: [kl] Different sorts of authority, and the 'barrell'.
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 00:38:11 -0400

<><> Tony Pay wrote:
My complaint against you was that for almost a year, you *didn't* try
the experiment, yet nevertheless continued every now and then to post
nonsense about it.

I appreciate what you're saying, Tony. I also remember how you
encouraged me to be 'courageous' and to clean my own register tube. I
accepted the 'challenge', and I even bought my own spring hook to do the
job.

I definitely don't harbor a grudge. But just so you understand my view
of the issue:

I **have** been trying for over 12 months now to purchase a barrel made
to certain specifications. Nobody was willing to make it for me, and
finally I gave up. My thought was that anything I made myself without
a lathe & reaming tools wouldn't have much chance of success. But I
have **NOT** wasted those 12 months yapping here on Klarinet without
trying to obtains materials for an actual experiment.

As you and I have already discussed, finding an object such as film
cannister or piece of pipe or whatever seemed like a dead end to me for
practical reasons. But I was **NOT** just sitting back on my rear end
and yapping.

If it matters to you, I actually paid for one barrel that I never
received. I and the craftsman have agreed on doing something else
instead, and therefore I don't feel wronged. I will end up with
something that I've wanted for a while.

....but when it became obvious just a couple of weeks ago that my
'weird' barrel was never going to arrive, and when Walter declined to
make a 'blank' for me, it only took me 2 weeks to obtain a blank by
other means; and since the day that I received it, I've done a number of
experiments based on the fortunate coincidence of seeing the duduk
performer's clarinet barrel, which contained curves.

Some of the last few days have been spent learning how to handle and
shape and place the filler material. I won't bore the list with a
diary of my attempts. But I will say.....

I finally made one barrel that plays the entire chromatic scale within
ten cents or less. Ten cents isn't close enough for a performance, of
course. But keep in mind that I'm shaping filler by hand, pressing it
into place with my fingers, and there's no way to polish it afterwards.

More important than playing an approximate chromatic scale is the fact
that the sound changes in the direction that I want, even up into the
lower altissimo. In other words, I believe that I'm on the right
track.

It happened that the filler fell apart (mostly through my own
carelessness) a few hours after I made this barrel. I was able to
start fresh and repeat the experiment with similar results. So my
'design' has at least some basic tendency to stabilize at a sound that I
want.

<><> Cylinders often do. What do you mean?

We've spoken before of a bore being mostly a cylinder even though its
diameter varies along its length. "Polycylindrical" is a common name
for this. To my naked eye, a sweeping curve reversed its direction in
two places (not just one place).

Cheers,
Bill

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