Klarinet Archive - Posting 000629.txt from 2003/08

From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Tony=20Pay?= <tony_pay@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] RE: Articulation problems
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 15:01:22 -0400

--- Ormondtoby Montoya <ormondtoby@-----.net> wrote:

> I worried all night about the proper phrase to describe what the tongue
> does during articulation. The following comment may seem trivial, but
> if an important concept isn't stated explicitly, then it can become a
> non-trivial problem. My comment is:
>
> It is ***air pressure*** that closes the reed. It's true that the
> tongue does "something" to quiet the reed's vibration, such that our
> breath can do the rest. Whatever the correct name for this "something"
> may be, we seldom see posts that state explicitly that our breath
> provides the primary driving force. As obvious as this concept may be,
> it needs saying.

There are several difficulties here. The first is probably that you don't
describe what you mean by 'articulation'. Is that as in a staccato passage?

> It is ***air pressure*** that closes the reed.

One has to ask: what do you mean by 'closing the reed'?

You might mean that during a note, the reed closes against the mouthpiece
during the cycle, and that's certainly driven by airpressure.

But it's nothing to do with what the tongue does in staccato.

> It's true that the tongue does "something" to quiet the reed's vibration, >
such that our breath can do the rest.

The tongue totally interrupts the reed's vibrations in staccato. The breath is
what sustains the reed's vibrations.

> In fact..... if I aimed my clarinet toward the ceiling and fingered all
> the holes closed, and then someone poured water into my clarinet until
> it was full to the bell. I wonder if I could stop the water from leaking
> out the mouthpiece by tongue pressure on the reed alone? I doubt it.
> It's our breath that does the major part of the work, and this needs to
> be said explicitly.

This is just a crazy model. It doesn't help in the least.

Tony

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