 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Mike Johnson
Date: 2007-12-02 03:17
Does anyone know if there is a name for the extra noises made by an instrument that are not part of the normal, expected sound? For example, the key noise on a bass clarinet, or the string noise on a guitar, etc. They certainly provide an 'authentic' non-electronic feel to the music, and seem deserving of recognition. "Bonus noises"? "Freak effects"? "Anomalous acoustics"?
Mike Johnson
Napa, California
Post Edited (2007-12-02 14:36)
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Author: cigleris
Date: 2007-12-02 15:31
I don't think it has a specific term but it is standard in extended technique.
Peter Cigleris
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2007-12-02 16:20
I'd go with "bynoise". ("collateral" has a rather negative touch these days)
--
Ben
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Author: Alseg
Date: 2007-12-02 16:46
Production noise
Adventitious noise or sounds.
Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-
Post Edited (2007-12-02 19:02)
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2007-12-02 17:42
Probably the word "noise" alone would differentiate it from the desired "sound". In the worlds of electronics, radio-frequency, and acoustics/signal processing the term "noise" is used to indicated unwanted 'stuff', as opposed to 'signal' which is the good stuff.
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Author: LarryBocaner ★2017
Date: 2007-12-02 20:43
Organists call the non-tonal initial sound of some organ pipes "chiff". Maybe we should call our incidental noise "chaff?"
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Author: Alseg
Date: 2007-12-02 23:17
Reedisual(sic) noise?
Former creator of CUSTOM CLARINET TUNING BARRELS by DR. ALLAN SEGAL
-Where the Sound Matters Most(tm)-
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-12-03 00:13
I've often pondered about the 'other' noises that instruments make - particularly pianos - as well as the musical sounds there's also the accompanying sound like someone knocking on your door.
Oh wait - it IS someone knocking on my door telling me to keep the noise down as it's 1:15AM on a Monday mornng!
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Mike Johnson
Date: 2007-12-03 00:27
Thanks for the help! I was actually asked this by a non-music person, and was stumped. Now that Allan mentions it, I do think I recall hearing 'production noise' used to describe this effect. However, in some cases it is desirable...in which case it wouldn't be 'noise', but rather would, as David observed, 'signal'. Larry mentioned 'chiff', a word which I had never heard before (not being much of an organ guy). The suggestion of 'chaff', which refers to several different types of small particles from agriculture to military aircraft, is a good twist.
In the future, if asked, I guess I'll probably go with 'chiff'...might as well pay respects to the organists, since they defined the word for their instrument first. Thank you EVERYONE for help in answering this one! If anyone has any others, please keep them coming...especially the funny ones!
Mike Johnson
Napa, California
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-12-03 00:40
I usually call the sound a guitarist's fingers makes when they slide 'string squeak'.
I've heard the sound referred to by organists as 'chuff' as well.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2007-12-03 05:46
>> the term "noise" is used to indicated unwanted 'stuff', as opposed to 'signal' which is the good stuff. <<
What do they do when recording the music genre that is called 'Noise'? 
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2007-12-03 13:05
Are we just about to agree on "ch?ff, and play the vowel game for it's variety of sounds ?? Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-12-03 13:07
I like the 'choffy' clarinet sound!
Especially Gino Cioffi's sound - that's a choffy sound indeed.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2007-12-03 19:50
I don't think "chiff" is the best word to describe mechanical noise on a clarinet, because "chiff" has a very specific meaning for pipe organ players and it describes something quite different from the clunking that sometimes comes from a clarinet's keys. (I just call key noises and so forth "mechanical noise." Same with a badly-regulated piano--if I can hear the key bottoming out with a thud, that's mechanical noise.)
Chiff on a pipe organ is a very specific sound, a product of what's known as slow speech in some pipe organs, especially in the largest pipes. Before the pipe produces its tone, you hear a little huff of air, similar to what you get when you take the mouthpiece off the clarinet and the reed off the mouthpiece, then blow hard into it to clear water out. It sounds like air because it is air, being blown into the pipe from the footing that's stuck into the wind chest below. Sometimes on a tracker (mechanical, not electronic) pipe organ, the sound is stronger than that, with a "ch" or "CHA!" noise that can be distractingly loud, hence the name "chiff."
Pipe organists also talk about many other kinds of noises, including tracker bangs and clunks, ciphering (pipes playing all by themselves when you don't want them to), groans, squeaks and all sorts of things. I found out about them when I took pipe organ lessons for about four months from my Uncle Bill VanEss, a pro in New York City when I was a temporary resident there. He was organist at Riverside Church for a time, but when I studied with him, he played in a decidedly lower-end sanctuary where the 19th century tracker organ had been allowed to deteriorate. Sounded like a haunted house.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
Post Edited (2007-12-03 19:52)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-12-03 22:10
I was likening the name Cioffi to the word 'choffy' - definitely not a bad thing.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Mike Johnson
Date: 2007-12-04 00:39
I like 'chiff' because:
1.) It does not differentiate between 'noise' and 'signal'...a good feature, considering these extra sounds are sometimes desirable and sometimes not.
2.) While it is a word defining a specific sound in organ lexicon, so far it seems to be the only single word for this concept.
3.) It sounds cool.
However, as Lelia pointed out, it really is an organ word.
Hmmm...it is always fun to add new words to the English language. A quick check of dictionary.com shows no definitions for 'choff' (Chris's contribution). Chaff and chuff are already in use. Perhaps we should use it to define this general phenomenon of extra noises? I nominate "choff" to be 'officially added' to the English language (unless, of course, somebody comes up with something better!).
Mike Johnson
Napa, California
Post Edited (2007-12-04 00:40)
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Author: Ski
Date: 2007-12-05 03:10
Putting my synthesist/sound designer's hat on here, as we take sounds apart to their individual components in an attempt to re-create and/or sample them...
Pipe organ (or calliope) chiff is a idiomatic noise associated with sound production on those instruments. "Chiff" is also a term commonly used to describe the loud, breathy sound associated with staccato (or otherwise forceful) flute and pan pipe playing. It's also heard from accordions and harmonicas, though rarely referred to as "chiff".
What Mike described regarding key noise on a bass clarinet, for one, are what we'd refer to as just that: key noises or key clicks. Some instrument re-creations on synth or sampler include such sounds, but I almost always find them objectionable for production and technical reasons.
There's piano "knock" with respect to the ratio of pitch to mechanical noise in the sound of the highest notes, and "thump" (damper pedal noise). Hammond organ simulations often have a parameter for controlling the amount of "key click" (a sometimes audible artifact of electrical switch contact made when a key is pressed) and "leakage" (sound of all drawbars heard simulateously when no keys are played).
For string instruments, such as guitar, you have "fret noise", "slide noise", "string noise", "falloff", "pick noise", etc. My point here is that for some instruments, each specific instrumental noise might have its own name. The only generic term for these I can recall using when discussing such sounds with my sound design colleagues is simply "instrument noise".
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2007-12-05 10:53
I was listening to a Berlin Phil recording (from the '70s) of Brahms symphonies (all four) and there's loads of audiable finger slapping from the principal oboist - but it still sounds great.
And listen to anything like Strauss, Dvorak and Mozart wind instrument works and you have a built in percussionist with all the clattering keywork going on.
I don't think I've heard any recordings of brass players with clicking valves, though I've heard trombones with slides that go clunk when they hit the worn out felts, and tubas (the four valve compensating variety, not rotary) with clicking valves as the guide keys are worn to nothing.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: timg
Date: 2007-12-05 11:41
I have never needed a word for extraneous clarinet noises, but the suggestions above are so good that I'll have to find a way work them into everyday conversation. I vote for "Clunk & Slap". It would also describe the noise made by a disapproving teacher as his student fails to hit a note.
-Tim
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Author: Mike Johnson
Date: 2007-12-06 17:46
Looking back at Larry's suggestion of "chaff": It seems to have several definitions, some of them distantly similar to the phenomena we are discussing.
Definitions (dictionary.com)-
1. The husks of grains and grasses that are separated during threshing.
2. Straw cut up for fodder.
3. Worthless matter; refuse.
4. The membranous, usually dry, brittle bracts of the flowers of certain plants.
5. Strips of metal foil dropped by an aircraft to confuse enemy radar by creating false blips.
You could say that the concepts behind the existing definitions of "chaff" are: 1.) small 2.) insignificant or extraneous 3.) byproducts of production. Based on this, perhaps "chaff" is a more appropriate 'general' word, and would not take away from words or phrases specific to particular instruments or techniques. It has the benefit of being somewhat intuitive from existing definitions, while bearing similarity to the (conceptually similar) word "chiff".
Mike Johnson
Napa, California
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Author: Koo Young Chung
Date: 2007-12-06 22:00
Unless the noise is unacceptably loud,this kinds of noise
make each instuments more real and unique.
And it's essential part of any acoustical instruments.
I don't mind hearing finger board noise when violin is played fortissimo or fret noise from guitar etc.
Without those noise,sounds become too 'pure',almost electronic.
I would call it 'side tone'.
Post Edited (2007-12-06 22:04)
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