Klarinet Archive - Posting 000178.txt from 2004/05

From: Audrey Travis <vsofan@-----.ca>
Subj: Re: [kl] Vibrato in Nature?
Date: Sun, 9 May 2004 10:13:41 -0400

Laughing so hard my sides ache!!

Audrey

Lelia Loban wrote:
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.

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