The Clarinet BBoard

Quasi-cylindrical clarinets

Author: obtuse  Date:   2003-12-20 22:53 I was going through some of the old entries.. and I found a comment in this discussion that I found really interesting: ******** Author: Ken Shaw () Date: 1999-02-26 22:23 The clarinet always vibrates as a closed tube. I have read (in Benade, I believe) that the clarinet reed spends more time sealed against the lay than it does open. This longer time spent closed promotes the closed-tube mode, which is why the clarinet sounds and overblows as it does. During the time the reed is open, the vibration remains in closed-tube mode, since any open-tube vibration is overpowered by the longer-lasting closed tube vibration. An instrument can produce a stable tone only when it reliably acts as a closed or open pipe. The clarinet is designed to stay firmly in the closed-tube mode, just as the saxophone is designed to stay in open-tube mode, even though its reed seals completely against the mouthpiece just as it does on the clarinet, but for a shorter time. There have been attempts at an intermediate instrument, with a slightly conical bore that balances the open and closed periods, or falls just barely on the open tube side, but they were unsuccessful. A number of years ago, at the late, great Ponte's music store, Charlie Ponte brought out an early 20th century instrument called, I think, an "Octinet," which had a clarinet setup but a bore just conical enough to act as an open tube and overblow at the octave. It was difficult to play, and sounded more like a saxophone than a clarinet. Whenever I tried to make a clarinet sound, it quit playing altogether. Ponte also had a couple of Hungarian tarogatos, a sort of wooden soprano saxophone but with a less severely conical bore. It has a bit of clarinet in the sound, but is mostly saxophone. ********** If anyone has any information on this subject or resources I could look up for it, I'd really appreciate it. Someof the questions that come to mind right now are: Would this theoretically have the same low range as a clarinet, but still overblow an octave, or would it have to function losing some of its low range to facilitate this? What exactly about it would make it harder to play? Would the keys system have to change or what? What kind of register mechanism would it use? How would this affect its high range? Thanks for any information, or if anyone just wants to theorize, that could be interesting too. .st

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