Klarinet Archive - Posting 000208.txt from 2007/07

From: "Karl Krelove" <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Clarinet Manufacture - Wood is a "Living" Material - Barrels
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:56:34 -0400


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Vaccaro [mailto:mike@-----.com]
> Subject: Re: [kl] Clarinet Manufacture - Differences between French and
> German - Wood is a "Living" Material
>
> I make clarinet barrels and after playing a lot of them over time I can
> tell you that each piece of wood is different. Even the 3 barrels we make
> out of one single large piece of wood are different.
>

I recently had several barrels of different materials and shapes sent to me
on approval by a well known maker. I had an enjoyable few days comparing all
the combinations of shape and material and found, as I would have expected,
that every barrel was different from all the others to one degree or
another. Even two of the same shape and material were noticeably different.
I wondered why, a little - until I measured their bores (something I had
deliberately avoiding doing previously to avoid biasing my own judgments).
They were significantly different from each other at each end of their
tapers even though they were ostensibly (I thought) meant to be twins. It
seems obvious to me that you can't meaningfully compare the differences
between materials or external shapes if the bore diameters are different.
That three barrels come from the same piece of wood is not in itself a
reason even to expect them to sound the same - unless for the sake of the
experiment the bores (and probably the external dimensions as well) are
absolutely identical.

From a practical point of view how do-able is it to produce three or any
number of identical barrels (or mouthpieces or bells - fill in the part)? Or
is this in fact the first, maybe most important influence of the "living"
character of wood - that it somehow makes identical machining of each
separate piece impossible or at least impractical with current techniques?

Karl

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