Klarinet Archive - Posting 000177.txt from 2004/05

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Vibrato in Nature?
Date: Sun, 9 May 2004 08:30:35 -0400

Georg.Kuehner@-----.de wrote,
>The dog that I had some years was able to "sing"
>along with me when playing slowly - can't remember
>if she used vibrato. I'll have a test next week when
>visiting my parents. They still have Beagles.

My brother's mentally retarded Cocker Spaniel used to "sing" with any
musical instrument. (I'm using "mentally retarded" literally and not as a
pejorative, btw. She was a sweet-natured dog and we loved her dearly, but
Silkie was the runt of the litter, half the size of a normal Cocker Spaniel
-- and she had a runt-sized brain, too.) She did have a vibrato. It
seemed to me that she widened it more and more, the longer she held a note.
When I practiced the piano, she positioned herself underneath the piano, in
a particular spot where her howls would set off harmonic resonance in the
piano's soundboard, so it hummed along with her.

My brother and I used to howl our clarinets with her. She would howl a
little when we practiced, but howling *with* her meant putting away the
music, facing her and carrying on a conversation with her. A very sociable
dog, she loved this extra attention. We could get her to change her pitch
by changing our notes, but we were under orders never to do any intense
concertizing with her inside the house, because the clarinet conversations
excited her more than practicing did. If we got her too giddy, she wet
herself. Better the lawn than the carpet.

Ever listen to a lot of dogs or wolves harmonizing? The more dogs, the
wider the vibrato and the more interesting the intervals. Dogs seem to
like to create dissonance with distinct "beats." An individual dog will
come in at different pitches depending on his spot in the order. When we
have a full eclipse of the sun or the moon here, my husband and I walk out
to a local pedestrian overpass and howl. We set off the neighborhood dogs,
until we become part of a canine community chorale: everything from
low-pitched baying that sounds like it's coming from the Hound of the
Baskervilles to a small-sounding couple (probably a pair of those little
dust-mop dogs) that chimes in with high-pitched, contrapuntal squeals of
yip-yip-yip-aahwoooooooo.

Shadow Cat only uses a vibrato in two cirumstances. Usually she just asks
for food in a no-nonsense manner ("Feed me! Now!"), but if I'm sluggardly,
she lets out a high-pitched demand, with a crescendo and vibrato rising at
the end of each syllable: "Feeeyeeeyeeed meyee! Riiiiiyiight
nowyowyowyow!"

When she sits in one of her window lookouts and spies another cat in *her*
yard, she lets out a low-pitched, growling death-threat, punctuated with
spits, hisses and non-vibrato, high-pitched screeches, as she stands her
fur on end, bottle-brushes her tail, arches her back and furiously bangs on
the glass with her paws: "Yoooooou [expletive deleted]!! Scat!! Get
owowowowowout of myyyyyyyyeeeee yaaaaaaard! I'll ssssssslit your
[expletive deleted] throwowowowowoat! Ssssshamelessss sssssssslut!
OUWOWOWOWOWOW-OUT!!" That wow-wow-wow sound is a very wide jaw vibrato, or
somewhere in between a vibrato and a rapidly-repeated dipthong, or a
low-pitched yodel. I can see her jaw working up and down. She reminds me
of a rackett: hard to believe something that small can emit such a low-
pitched sound. (She goes nuclear if I laugh.) She's got the next-door
neighbor's cat terrified; but, years ago, one fat old orange tom used to
come by about once a week, sit under the window and silently watch Shadow
go through this whole frenzy, with a slightly amused but mostly bored look
on his face. Then he'd turn his back on her, loft his plumed tail and flip
it insultingly, then slip off into the darkness.

Lelia Loban
E-mail: lelialoban@-----.net
Web site (original music scores as audio or print-out):
http://members.sibeliusmusic.com/LeliaLoban

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