 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: 25clarinets
Date: 2010-04-24 03:15
I have recently read that a "dark tone" is one in which the lower harmonics are emphasized, and a "bright tone" is one in which the higher harmonics are emphasized. Is this true?
If you have time to worry, play
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Author: kdk
Date: 2010-04-24 13:57
That's the theory used by many players to explain why they think the terms "dark" and "bright" should be considered meaningful descriptors of tone. But nearly everyone who uses those terms has formed his or her understanding of them apart from an oscilloscope or other measuring equpment and just assumes that the results of a real measurement would conform to the theory.
Karl
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2010-04-24 16:19
I've just gone through the agony of making spectrographs of the sound of my clarinet.
I loaded an mp3 file of a held tone (recorded with a Zoom H2) into Audacity and used that to provide the spectrograph.
I compared two mouthpieces. One was a custom faced Zinner and the other was a custom faced Vandoren (M30/13).
The spectra were quit different. The Zinner produced almost equal fundamental, 3rd harmonic and 5th harmonic, with the higher overtones fading quickly away.
The Vandoren produced a much stronger 7th harmonic --just about equal to the fundamental, 3rd, and 5th. The higher overtones faded away quickly.
So, the Vandoren might be called brighter because it produces stronger overtones, and my teacher and colleagues all prefer the sound of the Zinner. From my end of the horn, I can't recognize much difference (they have the same, easy Lee Livengood facings).
This process of making the spectrographs and comparing them is too laborious and slow to be a useful tool.
There is also a little program called AddSynth that allows you to mix in harmonics using a computerized synthesizer so that you can hear the effects of the overtones. I have not been able to make a clarinet-ish sound with it; so this jury member is still "out."
Bob Phillips
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Author: kdk
Date: 2010-04-24 17:12
This is interesting, and among other things probably demonstrates why most players don't have any idea what the sound they personally hear as "dark" really consists of - I guess most of us would rather be playing.
I'm curious why you would characterize the two spectra you measured as "quite different" when it sounds from your description as though they were identical except for the 7th harmonic. I don't in the least dispute that Zinner-based mouthpieces sound different from Vandorens - Series 13 or Traditional. But the leap from "the Vandoren might be called brighter because it produces stronger overtones" to "my teacher and colleagues all prefer the sound of the Zinner" seems a little precipitous, almost non-sequitor. I prefer the sound of the Zinners I've tried (and currently play on) to Vandorens also, but to me the differences are not so much, if at all, between "dark" and "bright" - to my ears there's much more involved, I suspect, than the strength of a single (7th) harmonic.
I wonder what you would see if you did a similar comparison between a mouthpiece, as a general example, that's specifically designed for big band jazz work - I don't even know what to suggest because I've always played even jazz on my regular "classical" mouthpieces - and a Zinner. Or between a really old Ched or Kaspar (which were always when I was growing up epitomized as "dark" sounding) and a modern Zinner, Pyne, Behn or Backun.
Karl
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2010-04-24 20:26
-- "I'm curious why you would characterize the two spectra you measured as "quite different" when it sounds from your description as though they were identical except for the 7th harmonic." --
Bob said
"The Vandoren produced a much stronger 7th harmonic "
So perhaps "Very different" would be more accurate.
Steve
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-04-24 21:18
Something like that, sort of, more or less. Of course one could ask what you mean by bright and dark, but it won't be me. ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: kdk
Date: 2010-04-25 00:19
Well, or perhaps "very similar" would be even closer, whether or not a single stronger harmonic alone produces a different tone quality. Since the sounds are noticeably (not radically) different, my question would then be why so seemingly specific and limited a difference - a spike in one harmonic, especially one well beyond human hearing range (the 7th harmonic above A220 is 28,160 Hz, isn't it?), would account for the entire difference. As it is, Bob's result makes me consider even more strongly that the difference between the sounds of an M13 and a Zinner A blank are attributable to something more than the harmonic distribution. But the physics involved are well beyond the scope of my last physics course - high school Physics I almost 50 years ago, so I'm interested in the input of others who are better trained in acoustics than I.
Karl
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Author: vin
Date: 2010-04-25 01:46
I'm not trained in acoustics, but the 7th partial (what Bob calls harmonics) above "C4" is a very flat high Bb6 (the standard high A fingering is a variation of this). It is certainly audible to the human ear and certainly contributes to what people call "dark" and "bright."
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Author: kdk
Date: 2010-04-25 04:57
You're right - partially :-). I was mistakenly counting octaves, not partials or harmonics. Not enough thought before I hit <send>.
To quibble slightly, though, partials and harmonics are different, I think, by 1 - the first partial is the fundamental. The 1st harmonic is an octave higher than the fundamental. But you're right - the 7th harmonic is much lower than I suggested and would be audible (even to us older folks who are prone to age-impaired hearing). I'm still not ready to accept that a stronger 7th partial alone is responsible for the difference between the natural sound of my Grabner (Zinner-blank) mouthpiece and that of a Vandoren M13. If other influences are involved, and if the consensus (if there is one) is that the Vandoren is "brighter" than the Zinner, then the overtone-based explanation of "bright" and "dark" is at least incomplete if not spurious.
There's still the problem that if you asked everyone in a room full of musicians to rank a selection of sounds (keep the instrument constant, whichever one you choose) from darkest to brightest, I doubt that you would get unanimity - maybe not even consensus. Musicians each have their own personal understanding of dark/bright (as well as other descriptors imported from non-aural arts) and to make a harmonic-based definition useful (universally meaningful) you'd need to train every musician to listen with the same criteria. The OP's question was whether or not such a universally recognized criterion exists, and I think the experiential answer has to be that it really isn't all that universal in the real world.
Karl
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Author: kdk
Date: 2010-04-25 04:57
You're right - partially :-). I was mistakenly counting octaves, not partials or harmonics. Not enough thought before I hit <send>.
To quibble slightly, though, partials and harmonics are different, I think, by 1 - the first partial is the fundamental. The 1st harmonic is an octave higher than the fundamental. But you're right - the 7th harmonic is much lower than I suggested and would be audible (even to us older folks who are prone to age-impaired hearing). I'm still not ready to accept that a stronger 7th partial alone is responsible for the difference between the natural sound of my Grabner (Zinner-blank) mouthpiece and that of a Vandoren M13. If other influences are involved, and if the consensus (if there is one) is that the Vandoren is "brighter" than the Zinner, then the overtone-based explanation of "bright" and "dark" is at least incomplete if not spurious.
There's still the problem that if you asked everyone in a room full of musicians to rank a selection of sounds (keep the instrument constant, whichever one you choose) from darkest to brightest, I doubt that you would get unanimity - maybe not even consensus. Musicians each have their own personal understanding of dark/bright (as well as other descriptors imported from non-aural arts) and to make a harmonic-based definition useful (universally meaningful) you'd need to train every musician to listen with the same criteria. The OP's question was whether or not such a universally recognized criterion exists, and I think the experiential answer has to be that it really isn't all that universal in the real world.
Karl
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2010-04-25 16:37
Attachment: D Zinner D5.jpg (56k)
Attachment: D Livengood M3013.jpg (57k)
Attachment: D Stock M30 D5.jpg (57k)
Thanks for all of your comments on my rudimentary results from my harmonic analysis of the tones that I get from my small mouthpiece collection. The process is painful, and results in a collection of computer graphic files that one can look at, along with a recording of the source tone.
Here, I attempt to attach three pictures of the spectra I found from fingering D5, each with a different mouthpiece on my Buffet RC Bb with a stock R13 barrel.
The Zinner was faced by Lee Livengood, as was the "Livengood M30/13. The Stock M30 is NOT a -13 mouthpiece and has the production facing.
Bob Phillips
Post Edited (2010-04-25 16:41)
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