Klarinet Archive - Posting 000081.txt from 2008/01

From: "Kevin Fay" <kevin.fay.home@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] warm-cool/fast-slow
Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2008 16:53:25 -0500

Jonathan Cohler posted:

<<<The air temperature does NOT change based on its speed. . . . People say
that the air is cooler, because if you blow on your hand, for example, a
fast air stream feels cooler than a slow one. But that has nothing to due
with the temperature of the air.

It has to do with the fact that a fast air stream causes evaporation
of moisture on your hand, and the evaporation causes cooling. This
is often known as the "wind chill" effect in weather reporting.>>>

Um, not quite.

A fast air stream feels cooler because the moving air creates a drop in air
pressure. (Among other things, this is why airplanes fly - the pressure at
the top of an airfoil is less than the bottom.)

Gas at a given temperature at a lower pressure will "feel" cooler because
there are effectively fewer molecules to bump about and transfer their
kinetic energy. The phenomenon is called "adiabatic cooling" and has
nothing to do with evaporation.

This also has little to do with the rest of Jonathan's post, as "warm air"
and "cold air" are mostly metaphors for opening up the oral cavity.

One collateral observation: a player who is thinking "cold air" (i.e.,
"fast" air) might well be applying a bit more jaw pressure, which actually
*is* closing the reed/mouthpiece aperture. At the same level of pressure,
this would be "faster" air, which due to adiabatic cooling might well feel
"cooler" if you were able to stick a finger in the air stream. But that's
really about jaw pressure, not perceived temperature.

Voicing *is* important, although perhaps less so on clarinet than on some
other instruments. It's possible to play clarinet with a facial "mask" in
one scoop-chinned set embouchure; a recall an instruction book from my youth
that used that terminology. I thought it wrong then, and like that metaphor
even less now.

There is a training device, easily available, that will dramatically help
understand voicing. It is called a "trumpet." On brass instruments, you
can't play a single octave without voicing with the inside of your head.

I took a music education class in college that we called "zoo band" -
students took a quarter of study on an instrument not their own. Instead of
cheating for a better grade and picking a woodwind instrument that I already
doubled on, I struggled with a cornet. I learned more about voicing in that
quarter than from years of metaphorical clarinet study.

. . . see, there is something to learn from the Neanderthals in the back
row!

kjf

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