Klarinet Archive - Posting 000171.txt from 2007/03

From: "David Renaud" <manonrivet@-----.ca>
Subj: Re: [kl] Bright and dark sounds
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 13:24:14 -0400

Hello

Reflecting on the comments made I am curious if my
concept of dark and bright jives with others.

I relate sound to light spectrum; "dark" colours being towards
the low frequencies in greens and blues, "bright" colours
being towards the high end of the spectrum, yellows
and reds. When someone asks for a "brighter" sound on a mixing
board I would turn up the pertinent high frequencies to
alter the tone.
On clarinet, "bright" means to me lots of high frequency
harmonic content. Bright does not mean "good". Dark does
not mean "good" A stuffy sound might be described by someone
as dark by virtue of a lack of high harmonics. A squeaky thin
sound might be described by someone as bright because of the
predominance of high harmonics. A good sound to me means
allowing a clarinet to speak naturally with a full balanced
distribution of harmonic content natural to the clarinet.

A strong mature player often tends to have a sound that could
be described as "resonant", "clear" or sometimes "bright". High
air speed from good compression focused by various tongue
positions does evoke extra high harmonic content. This creates
a "brightness" in clear upper harmonics without loss of lower
partials. A overly tight embouchure can also create a bright sound but
by virtue of inhibiting lower harmonic content, leaving a predominance
of high content remaining.

I think of it like a stereo with treble-mid- bass knobs. You can
create"bright" by turning the bass down and being left with just
treble, or you can create"bright" by turning the treble up, and leave the
bass alone. With this analogy I see there are very different sounds
that all can be called "bright"

What I really want is not "dark" or "bright" but lots of balanced
harmonic content throughout the spectrum as the clarinet naturally
wants to speak. That harmonic content is altered by air speed,
aural cavity, and embouchure tightness.

I find bight and dark so confusing, for each can mean so many things
to so many people. I see these not as defining sound but as a term
describing presence of high or low frequency harmonic content. Both
good and poor sounds can be described as bright.

I look forward to Tony Pay's promised expose on this topic.
Please feel free to clarify and correct my thinking on this subject.
This subject is no longer in the "dark" for me, but neither fully in
the "light", remaining somewhat "grey".

Thank You
David
Renaud

> It's intereting (to me at least) how it is very
> different in different languages. In my first language
> I've never heard anyone refer to sound with the
> equivilent words of dark and bright.

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