Klarinet Archive - Posting 000016.txt from 2011/07
From: Diego Casadei <casadei.diego@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Multiphonic mistunings
Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2011 16:06:01 -0400
Hello.
What do you mean with "the regular high-D fingering"? Did you let also
the thumb closing the hole and lifting the register key? This is
something which I was never able to do :-)
The other interesting thing (to me) is that you speak about "dyad" which
I guess it means that you are playing two tones, whereas in all my
attempts I always played 3 tones (unfortunately, not very homogeneous in
intensity...).
Right now I have no way of trying this, but will make some attempt asap.
BTW, my experience is that the lower note, because I open the thumb
hole, tend to be sharper. Hence what you called a flat F# would have
been a sharp F in my case (well, by memory... don't trust me!).
Thanks for your stimulating message. I hope some real expert will
provide a useful answer!
Best regards,
Diego
Joseph Wakeling wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Wondering if those of you with contemporary-music experience might be
> able to help out with a little irritation ...
>
> Recently I was working on a piece that includes the throat F#-high D
> dyad obtained with the regular high-D fingering. Much to my shock and
> surprise I realized that the F# was extremely flat, maybe as much as a
> quarter tone or more.
>
> I know from experience that multiphonics are notoriously difficult to
> tune perfectly, but this was a surprise given that I'm fairly sure that
> in times past this multiphonic was well in tune (at least far more
> obviously an F#).
>
> A bit of further experimentation suggests that for quite a few of the
> multiphonics involving basically an upper-register fingering and an
> undertone, the lower note is about 1/4-tone flat compared to the notes
> given in the multiphonics appendix of New Directions for Clarinet.
>
> In many of these cases I'm pretty confident that the lower note was not
> so out of tune some while back, and I'm wondering if there's anything I
> can do to correct this.
>
> Some "what's changed?" thoughts: I've been using the same mouthpiece for
> years, but it could be a different type of (softer?) reed at fault, and
> could also be different (longer) barrel than I've used in the past,
> though I tried with a shorter one and it didn't rectify things. In
> general the flatness seems to come from the lowered lip pressure needed
> to let the multiphonic sound. (Besides, while barrel length might
> affect the pitch of regular throat notes, I'm not convinced it's the
> dominant factor in these dyad multiphonics.)
>
> Anyway, any suggestions for some tweaks that I could make that might set
> things a bit more to rights? I'm not expecting perfect intonation on
> multiphonics, but I'm fairly sure it can be improved from where it is ...
>
> Thanks& best wishes,
>
> -- Joe
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--
Diego Casadei
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