Klarinet Archive - Posting 000685.txt from 2004/07

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Sound character based on medium, and the subject of beating a dead horse
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 10:13:14 -0400

In each of the several times that this subject has been the
center of often heated disucssions, those who hold the view that
sound is somehow affected by the instrument's material invariably
allow their argument to become, "I hear the difference," or else
"My students hear the difference," or some other statement
suggesting that the sound difference between two instruments made
of different materials is descernable by the human ear, which is
certainly not an infallible scientific instrument.

The most recent posting that advanced this theory and ended up
concluding that I was "beating a dead horse," an argument based
entirely on the assertion that sound character differences were
discernable by that experts.

If that test (i.e., discernability by you, your students, your
wife or husband, etc.) constitutes the totality of the proof on
the subject, then we as clarinet players have absolutely no
standard by which we can conclude anything, and we are being sold
a bag of snakes by decent, honest people who have been brought to
believe that something is true without real evidence to support
it.

The world of clarinetistry is so consumed with meaningless
terminology about sound character (dark sound, bright sound,
French sound, German sound, shall I continue?), that we are
conditioned to believe statements made without any serious
scientific basis to confirm their accuracy. And those who
disagree are told that they are "beating a dead horse."

I think it was Sue who began this round with her (to me
outrageous) statement that her hard rubber clarinet sounded
"almost as good as a wooden clarinet." Poor girl. She did not
know the flood that this (to her) clearly obvious statement would
bring out. But that is because Sue is brainwashed by being told
this wood vs. hard rubber argument since her earliest years. So
she believes it.

Those of you who want to apply the "beating a dead horse"
argument because I (and others) do not accept your of a theory
that has no scientific proof to support it -- and has serious
argument to contradict it -- are not unlike those of the flat
earth society who still argue based on, in this case, their eyes.
That is to say, it is you who are not listening, this despite
your assertions about what your ear tells you. It is not your
ear speaking, it is decades of acceptance of a theory that has no
proof. And the supposed accuracy of this unproven assertion has
as its main use the business need to sell a more rather than less
expensive item.

Walter, it is unworthy of you to reduce a round of this inquiry
to the conclusion that those who do not agree with you are
"beating a dead horse."

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

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