Klarinet Archive - Posting 000403.txt from 2004/06

From: Gary Truesdail <gir@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Facing and intonation
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2004 16:58:35 -0400

Walt, I wonder.......

Could it be that not all nodes start at the tip of the mouthpiece? Some
are a little further down in the area of greater thickness in the reed
(which might be a source but not every source of stuffiness in some
tones), or, all nodes that are near the tip are those notes that occur
in the upper portion of the instrument and hence brighter or more open
and free, as opposed to the notes from the lower portion of the
instrument that may have a different tone character. Maybe bringing the
portion of the reed closer to the point of the required node for a given
note (lowering the curve of the mtpc in a given section) has a similar
effect of shortening distance between tip of reed and the first open
tone hole (pushing in). (This may have some effect but it can't account
for a 10 cent difference. 10 cents is off is enough to get a player fired.

Could it be that notes in the upper portion of the instrument are
brighter because the node is near the tip which is the area closest to
tip of the baffle.

Question? Since you do mouthpieces, what is your opinion regarding
curved or flat baffle? I know it must be curved entering the back bore
area but it is essentially horizontally flat at the very tip.

Gary Truesdail

GrabnerWG@-----.com wrote:

>OK, this will probably cause a chuckle from some of the old-timers on the
>list, and especially people like Clark Fobes, who probably knew this 20 years ago
>or more.
>
>Tonight I was experimenting with a much shorter facing on bass clarinet
>mouthpieces. Some new blanks came in today and they had a much shorter, shallower
>beginning facing cut in them. (For those who don't know, blanks have a machine
>cut facing, and in many cases are somewhat playable.)
>
>I was having an interesting time playing on some mouthpieces on which I had
>not yet finished my regular facing. What I noticed about these (almost)
>mouthpieces was that they all seemed to have flat throat tones. Flat in the range of
>ten cents below "in tune."
>
>I could lip them it up to pitch, but it was a lot of effort.
>
>When I finished the facings, and brought, in particular, the middle facing
>measurements to "spec" (22 to 24, and 32 to 34) the intonation smoothed out and
>the pitch came up to normal.
>
>I knew, of course, that the mouthpiece facing affected intonation, but had
>never had it so dramatically demonstrated to me.
>
>Walter Grabner
>http://www.clarinetxpress.com/
>World-class clarinet, bass clarinet, and Eb mouthpieces
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org
>
>
>
>

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Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org