Klarinet Archive - Posting 000059.txt from 2009/10

From: "Dan Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] New A clarinet from Patricola
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:17:05 -0400

I have heard the argument that bright and warm refer to mid-frequency
harmonics. But that is anything but helpful.

What shall I do as a player if I want to "richly increase" the
high-frequency harmonics? Will wearing a hat do it, or putting on an extra
sweater? Perhaps dark glasses? I know I'm being foolish by making such
absurd statements, but they are given to show how these technical
descriptions of bright and dark are fundamentally useless. Players cannot
achieve a dark sound unless there is universal agreement on what such a
thing is.

The only sound character a clarinetist should strive for is one that pleases
that player. I assume that most adult professional players are objective
about how they sound, and what they need to do to achieve it. But telling a
person to play with a darker sound is an exercise in futility.

Once in the middle of one of the Mahler symphonies the conductor stopped the
orchestra and told me to play a particular passage with a darker sound. I
smiled helpfully and said that I would be glad to do so. I then played the
passage exactly the same way, and the conductor smiled saying, "That is
very much the sound character that I wanted." We hugged, kissed, and went
dancing.

Herb Blayman told me the story of playing something with the Utah orchestra
in the early 1950s. It was the Schubert C major and the conductor asked
Blayman to play the movement on a C clarinet, which Blayman did not have
with him. He had been using a B-flat clarinet. So he put the B-flat down
and picked up an A, and transposed for that instrument. The conductor smiled
and said, "See how much better it is when played on a C?" Blayman smiled
and said, "You are right, of course."

How on earth does a teacher explain to his student what a dark sound is and
what the student has to do to achieve it?

It is absolute and utter balderdash to use descriptive terms that have no
accepted scientific meaning.

Dan Leeson

----- Original Message -----
From: "Diego Casadei" <casadei.diego@-----.com>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 8:37 AM
Subject: Re: [kl] New A clarinet from Patricola

> Dear Dan,
>
> I fully agree with your comments. However, I don't think you provided
> some other way of defining the sound, did you? Shall we speak about the
> power spectrum?
>
> I'll try to play with old and new barrels and make a recording for people
> who care. However I can't compare new against old instruments because I
> only own one type (old B-flat, new A) and must warn people that the
> microphone does have some effect (I'm not a lucky owner of some good
> mic...). I hope to have something on the web in few days.
>
> Anyway, in textual messages we need to invent some convention to describe
> the sound. Usually "bright" means "rich in high-frequency harmonics",
> "warm" means "rich in mid-frequency harmonics", with "dark" and "cold"
> _almost_ at the opposite.
>
> Cheers,
> Diego
>
>
> Dan Leeson wrote:
>> In my opinion, we are once again falling into the use of meaningless and
>> counterproductive descriptors when speaking about the character of a
>> particular clarinet's sound.
>>
>> I suggest that the terms used by Diego -- "warmer," "darker," and
>> "bright" have no universal meaning. Clearly the sound of a clarinet
>> needs to be described, but images of color and temperature as used here
>> are not helpful. In practice, they are about as unhelpful as terminology
>> can be because there is little a student can do to obtain (or to reject)
>> the character of clarinet sound the s/he wants to have. And what is
>> "warmer" to one person can well be ice cold to another.
>>
>> I have told my story about Manny's music store on 48th street in NY
>> several times, but it is worth telling again.
>>
>> A young boy came into Manny's with his father to buy a clarinet. He said
>> he wanted one that had a "nice dark sound."
>>
>> The salesman picked one out saying that its sound was like the grave, as
>> dark as night. It was like playing while wearing a shroud. Blah, blah,
>> blah.
>>
>> The kid tried and eventually chose not to buy it. Nothing lost. The kid
>> couldn't play anyway. Father and son left the store and went elsewhere.
>>
>> Within 10 minutes another young student came in asking for a clarinet
>> with a bright sound. The same salesman took the same clarinet out and
>> told the student that its sound was as bright as the sun at midday. "You
>> need to play this instrument with sunglasses on," said the salesman. The
>> student was so impressed, that he bought the instrument.
>>
>> Dan Leeson
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Diego Casadei"
>> <casadei.diego@-----.com>
>> To: <klarinet@-----.org>
>> Sent: Monday, October 05, 2009 7:57 AM
>> Subject: Re: [kl] New A clarinet from Patricola
>>
>>
>>> Dear Fred,
>>>
>>> you are completely right about springs etc. I also pay attention to
>>> such detail. About the sound, I should say that the "Virtuoso"
>>> clarinets are warmer and darker than the previous "Professional" series
>>> from Patricola, whose sound was typically bright. One of the past
>>> achievements from them was to change the barrels to make a warmer sound
>>> (again, I was bothering them a bit... I'm tedious): they showed me a
>>> hundred or so of old-style barrels that they decided not to sell any
>>> more. Still, the A clarinet is a bit warmer than the B-flat. But this
>>> is ok, and it is desired in almost all pieces written since the mid of
>>> XIX century. On the contrary, they still produce the C clarinet with
>>> the "old" sound, which is very bright: they told me that this is what
>>> people want from such an instrument. BTW, it's exciting to visit them:
>>> they are not an industry but work as old craftsmen (everybody is able to
>>> do everything), from the wood to the mechanics.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Diego
>>>
>>>
>>> Fred Jacobowitz wrote:
>>>> Diego,
>>>> I have had a similar issue in the past with my R-13s.
>>>> Unfortunately, most of the R-13 A clarinets I was able to get my hands
>>>> on then (alright, 25 years ago, but still...) were ridiculously
>>>> resistant and ultra-dark. I had to wait for at least a year, trying out
>>>> A's until I finally found one that was free-blowing, and (not
>>>> coincidentally?) was also quite in tune. It was brighter than the other
>>>> A's I'd tried too, so it blended perfectly with the sound of my Bb. It
>>>> was a great pleasure to occasionally forget which horn I was playing -
>>>> they were that similar in feel. However, my experience, as far as I can
>>>> tell, was (and still is!) quite common - and not just with Buffets.
>>>> GOOD FOR YOU for complaining to Patricola, and BRAVO to Patricola for
>>>> recognizing a problem and fixing it (would that Buffet would pay
>>>> attention to such things!).
>>>> May I also suggest that you do as I did, and spend a few bucks to
>>>> have a superior repair person make the spring tensions on both horns
>>>> identical, so there is no finger-confusion when changing horns.
>>>>
>>>> Fred Jacobowitz
>>>>
>>>> CASE CLOSED Musical Instrument Case Repair Service
>>>> Kol Haruach Klezmer Band
>>>> Ebony and Ivory Duo
>>>>
>>>> You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note.
>>>> ~Doug Floyd
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Oct 5, 2009, at 5:32 AM, Diego Casadei wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dear all,
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm pleased to say that, after some month of discussions with the
>>>>> Patricola brothers (http://patricola.it/), they were able to satisfy
>>>>> my request of having a more uniform feeling when switching between the
>>>>> B-flat and A clarinets.
>>>>>
>>>>> Some time ago, they started selling the B-flat "Virtuoso" clarinet,
>>>>> which is a great instrument (if you try, you buy...), together with
>>>>> the A clarinet. I had the impression that the latter, though a great
>>>>> clarinet, was giving a feeling not very similar to the B-flat. When
>>>>> playing in orchestra, switching is easier if the natural difference
>>>>> between the two instruments is less pronounced, hence I started
>>>>> bothering the Patricola pushing to change as much as possible the A
>>>>> feeling toward the B-flat one. After 2-3 bad prototypes, they were
>>>>> finally able to find the way of providing a similar response of the
>>>>> two instruments. On Friday, I played the first 2 new A instruments,
>>>>> and I should say that they are really great (my contribution has been
>>>>> negligible, still I'm proud of it :-) ...): now switching among a pair
>>>>> B-flat/A of "Vitruoso" clarinets is easier, and the A instrument did
>>>>> not loose anything of its qualities (which is the risk, whenever one
>>>>> makes changes to the bore).
>>>>>
>>>>> I hope you'll have a chance to test their instruments too.
>>>>>
>>>>> Best regards,
>>>>> Diego
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> PS. Just to reassure everybody, I don't earn any money with it :-)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Diego Casadei, PhD.
>>>>> Physics Department, CERN
>>>>> New York University bld. 32, S-A19
>>>>> 4 Washington Place 1211 Geneve 23
>>>>> New York, NY 10003 Mailbox J28310
>>>>> USA Switzerland
>>>>> office: +1-212-998-7675 office: +41-22-767-6809
>>>>> mobile: +39-347-1460488 mobile: +41-76-213-5376
>>>>> http://cern.ch/casadei/ Diego.Casadei@-----.ch
>>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Diego Casadei, PhD.
>>> Physics Department, CERN
>>> New York University bld. 32, S-A19
>>> 4 Washington Place 1211 Geneve 23
>>> New York, NY 10003 Mailbox J28310
>>> USA Switzerland
>>> office: +1-212-998-7675 office: +41-22-767-6809
>>> mobile: +39-347-1460488 mobile: +41-76-213-5376
>>> http://cern.ch/casadei/ Diego.Casadei@-----.ch
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>
> --
>
> Diego Casadei, PhD.
> Physics Department, CERN
> New York University bld. 32, S-A19
> 4 Washington Place 1211 Geneve 23
> New York, NY 10003 Mailbox J28310
> USA Switzerland
> office: +1-212-998-7675 office: +41-22-767-6809
> mobile: +39-347-1460488 mobile: +41-76-213-5376
> http://cern.ch/casadei/ Diego.Casadei@-----.ch
> ----------------------------------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>

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