Klarinet Archive - Posting 000061.txt from 2010/08

From: Jennifer Jones <helen.jennifer@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Bore design article - a more reasoned response
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:56:15 -0400

I am very sorry that last message was posted. It appears that while I
was going back to check some facts that the send button was somehow
pressed. That was not an appropriate post for this forum. It was
ill-reasoned and contained too much of a knee jerk gut feeling. On a
more thorough reading of the article and the accompanying
correspondence, it appears that the article is written for this
instrument repair/manufacturing school in Newark. In which case the
article is much more sensible than I originally thought. Nonetheless,
I still have specific criticisms. Which may or may not be appropriate
to consider given the application which this article was written for.

As an outsider (amateur clarinetist/bachelor's degree level botanist
and biochemist), who has read this list avidly in the past, I found
the article under scrutiny to be quite interesting and informative, at
first. I do have specific criticisms.

My comments refer to:
http://www.woodwindcourse.co.uk/user/image/clarinet_bore_design.doc

The figure on page two is unclear. There appear to be two captions.
One in bold indicating the effects of the speaker bush on the tuning
of the second register and the other beginning "The above diagram..."
Neither is very clear.

The sentence that begins "The above diagram..." confuses what the
caption in bold says. Where does bore size come into it? Bore size
is not explicitly addressed in the figure itself.

Does this diagram describe just the effect of the speaker hole
position, a combined effect of the bore diameter and speaker hole
position, or does it simply approximate the variation in width of
12ths along the range of the clarinet.

The sentence preceding the caption on page two suggests the first,
whereas the caption in bold under the figure also suggests the first,
but relies heavily on the text. It would be nice if the caption in
bold read something like the effect of speaker hole position on width
of twelfths, if that is correct.

The sentence below the figure, beginning "The above diagram shows the
combined effects..." suggests the last. The sentence below the figure
combined with the innovations later described for the R13 suggest that
the figure refers to a pre-R13 hypothetical clarinet. This sentence
also makes things unclear because the figure itself does not
explicitly address bore diameter. If the last sentence is to be used,
it seems to me that bore diameter should be explicitly addressed with
ranges.

If bore diameter is addressed, it might make sense to address the
effect of variation in diameter of the upper and lower portion of the
clarinet. In which case, the range in diameter should be indicated.
The text has a nice description of how expansion at the top lowers the
bottom register and expansion at the bottom raises the bottom
register. It would be nice if this is reflected in the diagram.

Another thing that is not clear about the figure is what Top, Middle
and Bottom mean. Does this correlate with what are presumably
twelfths? The putative twelfths, do not indicate what octave they lie
in, though someone with knowledge of the clarinet, might correlate
them with the Top, Middle, Bottom labels, as the C/F, B/E through E/A
on the left, being clarion/throat and C/F, B/E being
clarion/chalumeau. But that link is not made clear by the article and
even if it was made clear and the reader had specialized clarinet
knowledge, that does not help us understand the relation between bore
diameter or speaker key and bushing on the width of the twelfths.

The sentence "Sadly no manufacturer..." should be rewritten. What are
the circumstances that make a lack in advance of clarinet design sad?
It would be better to remove the word "Sadly" and simply state
something to the effect that no manufacturer has made changes
suggested by Benade and it would greatly improve the instrument if
these changes were made.

The last paragraph is wrong in my experience. I have not observed
large discrepancies in tuning when exchanging barrels with people. I
have found that barrels sometimes are not exchangeable, with sockets
being too small or too large for the tenons of the mouthpiece or upper
joint. Clarinets I have used include R13, Selmer, Bundy and Noblet.

In places, the grammar is unclear, for example the sentence in the
third paragraph on the second page "This out of position widens the
twelfths..." does not make sense to me. Maybe just eliminating "out
of" will fix the sentence.

There are some minor typos near the end. Twelth and Banade.

I am sorry that I was so scathing. It was not appropriate for the list.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Jones
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