 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Eoin McAuley
Date: 2000-08-09 08:54
I found a table of quarter tones for the clarinet in a reference book. (A quarter tone is a note exactly half way between two regular notes; for example, E half flat is half way between E and E flat). Out of curiosity I tried them out on my Buffet E13 clarinet. I find that while the fingerings produce the right pitch, the sound is dull and very quiet. Normal notes come out loud and full.
Why is this? Is the clarinet really tuned so highly to the "right" notes that it is incapable of producing the "wrong" ones?
This is a huge contrast to my recorder, where by suitable fingering you can flatten or sharpen most notes by any degree without changing the tone or volume.
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Author: javier garcia
Date: 2000-08-09 11:50
Maybe because in modern clarinets, each tone has a hole, that has been design and cut meticulously to produce the tone in pitch. Standard clarinets have 24 holes, but there 19 "main" holes to produce the full chromatic scale from low E to medium Bb (the other five holes are "second fingering holes"), the other tones are armonics from these basic notes. In the recorder, all sharp and flat notes must be played with "forked" fingerings. There are not single holes for each tone.
But I don't have "scientific" support to this idea.
Modern flutes and oboes have also one hole for each different tone. Do you know how "quarter tones" are played there?
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2000-08-09 16:18
Eoin, Your post rang my bell, so out of my abundance of curiosity, I looked up the 1/4 tone patent I remembered, US 4,714,001, readily available for viewing via http://patent.womplex.ibm.com/ or via uspto.gov. There may be equivalents in European countries, my visit to the Irish Pat Office in Dublin [Merion Square, I believe!]however showed me their dependence on US and GB patent activity, they had knowledgable personnel nevertheless. Luck, Don
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Author: Dee
Date: 2000-08-09 22:09
javier garcia wrote:
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Maybe because in modern clarinets, each tone has a hole, that has been design and cut meticulously to produce the tone in pitch. Standard clarinets have 24 holes, but there 19 "main" holes to produce the full chromatic scale from low E to medium Bb (the other five holes are "second fingering holes"), the other tones are armonics from these basic notes. In the recorder, all sharp and flat notes must be played with "forked" fingerings. There are not single holes for each tone.
But I don't have "scientific" support to this idea.
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I would tend to question your first sentence. According to books on the history of the clarinet such as F. Geoffrey Rendall's "The Clarinet", holes were added to allow each note its own hole because the cross fingerings for sharps and flats were unsatisfactory. The notes produced by cross fingerings suffered in both tone quality and intonation leading to the addition of the separate holes. This tends to imply it is a natural tendency of the clarinet.
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2000-08-09 23:30
It is used for modern clarinet music in which composers require them not for tuning purposes. Quater tone is also used for flute for the same purpose.
Quater tone source:
1.Clarinet:Guy Dangain(I do not know his book is abailable in U.S.)
2.Flute:James Pellerite 'Modern Flute Fingering'
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Author: joevacc
Date: 2000-08-10 04:11
Eoin,
A book that has been referred to on this BB before is "Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics" by Arthur H. Benade. The book has several dissertations on the acoustical properties of a set of open or closed tone holes. Looking through the book tells me that the answer to your question lies there. I don’t think it can be simply put though.
Hope this helps...
jv
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Author: javier garcia
Date: 2000-08-10 08:33
Sorry for my english! I think we agree. Obviously clarinets have evolved to improve tone and pitch. In fact, some "fork" notes are still available in the modern clarinet, not only standard B/F# (some clarinets have devices to improve this tone). Also G# (over the staff) can be made with A standard fingering, plus RH first (index) and second fingers. But the tone is stuffy and a little out of pitch! And there are others.
I think that modern woodwind instruments are conceived to produce the chromatic scale in pitch, not to make 1/4 tones or something else. But modern music has push the instruments and interpreters to find new ways of expression!
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