 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Dave Spiegelthal
Date: 2000-11-08 14:53
At the risk of re-opening Pandora's Box, I thought I'd let y'all know about a small experiment I'm conducting on everyone's favorite topic of "the effect of body material on clarinet tone". I'm currently playing on a wood Kohlert & Co. bass clarinet, and I just had the good fortune of picking up (on eBay) a hard rubber Kohlert & Co. bass clarinet of IDENTICAL design (except for the body being one-piece). As far as I can measure, the bores, necks and bells, key mechanisms, and tone hole spacings and sizes are the same. So if I do a decent job of restoring the hard rubber instrument to the same standard as the wood one, there should be the opportunity for a good "apples to apples" comparison.
I predict that the differences will be negligible, and that no listener will be able to tell (without looking) which instrument I'm playing.
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2000-11-08 15:27
For a true double-blind test, you also would be blind-folded and someone else would randomly hand you the instruments to play so that you wouldn't know which instrument you had. This way your playing wouldn't be affected psychologically by which instrument you had in your hands. (You would use the same mouthpiece and reed, of course.)
Better yet, recruit an expert bass clarinetist to be the test subject, but don't let him/her know what is going on, just that you want him/her to play and compare a couple of instruments while blindfolded. Each of the instruments are then handed to him/her randomly and without comment. This will remove your bias as to what you expect the results to be and the effect of that bias on your playing (i.e., trying to make them sound the same).
(And since we are being scientific about this, you will need to recruit a sufficient number of bass clarinetists/test subjects for statistically significant results.)
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2000-11-08 16:04
Not exactly true for a true double blind test. The person handing you the bass clarinets would have to be blindfolded, too.
Double blind requires that the person administering the test and the actual person doing the test not know which items are which.
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2000-11-08 16:36
If the person handing you the instruments was ignorant about clarinets to the point that (s)he could not tell much difference by looking at them, it would be effectively the same as blindfolding them. And by not being seen or heard, prejudicing the player could be avoided. Besides, not having them blindfolded avoids the possibility of their tripping and damaging the instrument or impaling someone with the mouthpiece.
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Author: Fred
Date: 2000-11-08 16:53
I wonder if the weakest link in this issue isn't the difficulty in getting two instruments in exactly the same playing condition. I suppose that if both instruments started from a fresh overhaul by the same master technician, that would be as close as you could expect to get. Still . . .
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Author: Dave Spiegelthal
Date: 2000-11-08 17:28
Everyone's comments above are right on the money --- I'm being a bit facetious about this being a scientific test, because even with all the blindfolds and precautions, this will not be a statistically valid comparison. Reasons are: (a) it only involves one sample point, and (b) as Fred pointed out, variations in the precision of the restoration (or in the original manufacturing, for that matter) are probably at least as statistically significant is any differences possibly attributable to the body material differences. Nonetheless, I'm gonna have fun with this experiment! I've already gotten some amusement value by playing a restored metal clarinet in orchestra rehearsal once, and more recently, I've been using a highly-modified, old white plastic clarinet mouthpiece in orchestra (it's actually my best-playing mouthpiece out of my whole collection, which includes crystal, wood, and hard rubber mouthpieces). And even if there is no scientific value to this project, at worst I'll have a good backup bass clarinet which won't be affected by humidity and won't crack (unless, of course, I drop it or bang it hard against something).
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Author: Fred
Date: 2000-11-08 18:01
Dave, the important thing, of course, is that you got a new toy. And it has the novelty of being almost just like one of your other toys. And it didn't cost near as much as a boat or hunting lease. Aren't you glad you never outgrow the thrill that toys can bring? It's kind of like the Vandoren 5JB mouthpiece I bought. Don't need it . . . will probably never play it seriously . . . but I can make some of the strangest sounds with it!! Neat toy.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2000-11-08 18:51
> He who dies with the most toys WINS!!!!!
Then I'd rather live with the most toys and LOSE!!!!
:^)
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Author: Bob Arney
Date: 2000-11-08 19:39
My! We all must have a lot to do today.
Have fun with your new toy.
I seem to be making the "strangest sounds" with any toy I have--but with luck that will improve.
Bob A
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2000-11-08 21:54
OH, MY, what a VUNDERBAHR proposal, recommendations and discussion. A blend of science, musicality, humor and psychology, IMHO. Lets all hope our "reading public" views this entire thread, as it really explains the "Double-blind" testing we have heard about but, like with me, I didn't appreciate the depths involved. But yes, Dave, let us know what you think from what comparison methods you [and we] have readily available. In another thread on Bass cl's [mp's?], I suggested an opinion from you would be of interest. Don
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2000-11-09 12:39
The manufacturer is likely to have gone to more trouble with the wooden one. For example are the tone holes undercut? A friend of mine who is a top recorder maker makes minute localized adjustments to the bore diameter to correct idiosyncrasies of tone and tuning. Do bass clarinet makers do that? Until you find these things out your experiment is totally unscientific.
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Author: Dave Spiegelthal
Date: 2000-11-09 13:56
Gordon,
As far as I can tell, only the larger bottom-joint tone holes on my wooden Kohlert bass are undercut, and a cursory inspection of the 'new' hard-rubber instrument last night indicates that those same tone holes are also undercut on it. I won't know the whole story until I get the clarinet disassembled, but certainly one of the things I'll do during the refurbishment is (if needed) undercut the tone holes on the hard-rubber instrument to the same extent as those on the wood instrument. This should help keep the comparison reasonably valid.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2000-11-10 12:28
Cut it through at every tone hole so that you can precisely copy the degree of undercutting. 
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Author: Dave Spiegelthal
Date: 2000-11-10 14:05
Gordon,
I don't know what you mean by 'cut it through at every tone hole' --- could you elaborate please?
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Author: Bill
Date: 2000-11-10 14:16
Gordon wrote:
Cut it through at every tone hole so that you can precisely copy the degree of undercutting.
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I realize that Gordon was being facetious, but could this be done in a non-destructive manner, like with a wax impression made via the bore?
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