 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2010-04-25 12:15
...although I think Stephen doesn't answer but rather address some questions. If there were a definitve answer, what would we quibble about in the future?
Still - excellent reading.
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Ben
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2010-04-25 13:01
Ben wrote:
>>
...although I think Stephen doesn't answer but rather address some questions. If there were a definitve answer, what would we quibble about in the future?
Still - excellent reading.
>>
What are the 'although' and 'still' doing in there? Are they intended to be qualifications of the worth of the article?
I'd rather say that to be able knowledgeably to say "we don't know", to questions the answers to which we DON'T know, or "it depends", to questions to which THAT answer is the only appropriate one, is a quality that some quibblers here could well strive to emulate.
Tony
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2010-04-25 13:14
Tony Pay wrote:
>> ...although I think Stephen doesn't answer but rather address
>> some questions. If there were a definitve answer, what would we
>> quibble about in the future?
>>
>> Still - excellent reading.
> What are the 'although' and 'still' doing in there? Are they
> intended to be qualifications of the worth of the article?
Not at all. Sorry if I was unclear. It was rather a comment on the initial poster who wrote that "This article (...) answers some important questions". I don't think it answers these questions (or I simply failed finding them), and I am not sure this was the intention of this article.
The "still" just wants to say that "even when I fail to see it answering (all) these questions, I find it excellent reading."
Please excuse my limited vocabulary. I am not a native speaker.
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Ben
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2010-04-25 16:16
There are a few academic studies of the effects of body material on the sound characteristics of woodwinds.
One made a few rudimentary flutes of thick and thin silver, gold, and (perhaps) aluminum. The spectral structure of the noises made were indistinguishable by spectrographic analysis.
The Fox article suggests to me that three material properties may be significant in the performance of a clarinet:
Specific stiffness is the ratio of Elastic modulus to density. Stiffness tends to force a distorted material back to its natural shape, and density tends to keep a moving section of material moving. The square root of this ratio [ sqrt(Stiffness/density) ] will almost always factor out of a mathematical expression for the vibration frequency(ies) of an object. The rest of the formula will reflect the dimensions and constraints of the vibrating object.
I'm pretty certain that the vibration characteristics of a reed depends upon the "cut/shape" and its specific stiffness. Can is stiff and light, so it vibrates rapidly, while simple plastic is not so stiff and much denser. Can is also directional in that the fibers run lengthwise, so that it is stiffer wrapping around the mouthpiece facing then in bending away from the mouthpiece table. Similarly, a wooden clarinet is stiffer in bending than it is in "swelling".
Another property of importance is specific damping, which is the ratio of energy dissipation to the product of stiffness and density. A stiffer material stores more energy when deflected a given amount than a softer material. A denser material stores more energy when it is moving, so these effects combine to establish how much energy is captured in the vibration. The damping determines how rapidly the material's vibration dissipates --and how rapidly it can be established or changed.
One would expect that specific damping would have a great effect on a clarinet body's transient response. For certain, the specific damping is significant in how well a reed will respond to a change in fingering in the altissimo register.
The third material property that is probably significant is its thermal diffusivity. This is the ratio of thermal conductivity to the product of density and specific heat. Unfortunately to an investigator, this is probably not independent of specific damping, as the energy dissipation involves the internal generation and transfer of heat. The amount of thermal energy in the material depends upon how much of it there is (density) and how much heat is required to change the material temperature a given amount. So thermal diffusivity is a measure of how rapidly a change in thermal energy propagates through the material.
As in stiffness, wood will have quite different values of thermal diffusivity along and across its grain.
As guidance for experimentation with clarinet bodies, one should probably compare measurable performance metrics with specific stiffness, specific damping and thermal diffusivity. One interesting experiment would be to compare two clarinets --one with the growth rings perfectly concentric with the bore, and another with the growth rings running across the bore.
Of course, the shape of the clarinet body (limited mostly to wall thickness, as the bore and tone holes can't be changed much) affects its vibration characteristics; so that needs to be controlled in the experimentation.
Of interest to me: carbon fiber and ceramic clarinets
Bob Phillips
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2010-04-25 17:17
> (...) ceramic clarinets
Pottery course in Tuscany, anyone? ![[tongue]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie6.gif)
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Ben
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Author: karlbonner82
Date: 2010-04-26 06:31
Though I didn't take the time to seriously read this article, I get the impression that the difference between wood and plastic is exaggerated by many in the clarinet community - a position that seems perfectly reasonable. I clearly remember from the old days that as my embouchure and technique improved, I was able to get better and better timbral quality out of my plastic student horn. When I upgraded the mouthpiece to rubber and the reeds to V-12s, the quality got a notch better still. And even then I still had plenty of room for improvement on my embouchure, as one mentor demonstrated.
So it makes sense that a GOOD plastic clarinet with a top-tier mouthpiece and reeds should be able to generate some awfully nice tonal colors in the hands of the proper musician.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2010-04-26 09:54
Carbon fibre clarinets will probably weigh far more than an equivalent wooden one due to the resin if the joints are made to the same diameter as a standard clarinet.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: RoBass
Date: 2010-04-26 12:37
ACK to Ben and others with the same meaning - there's a lot of truth inside, but not at all. Some of this investigations are compliable to German experiments and simulations, but some are more religious than science based ;-)
Hope to see more and more articles, formulated like this, then we'll get the answers one by one... It's a well done work, no doubt!
kindly
Roman
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2010-04-26 14:36
Roman wrote:
>> Some of this investigations are compliable to German experiments and simulations, but some are more religious than science based ;-)>>
The article listed a number of common beliefs about instrument materials, and made some suggestions about the possible origins of some of those beliefs.
The only investigation I saw in the article was the attempt to duplicate an African Blackwood clarinet in Delrin. Was that what you meant? If so, how is that religious rather than science based?
If that wasn't what you meant, what investigations were religious rather than science based?
I ask for information only.
Tony
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2010-04-26 16:53
Well the Fantastic Mr. Fox did answer one question:
"And as a clarinettist, it’s embarrassing to admit that many of one’s colleagues firmly believe that the sound of a clarinet is affected by whether the plating on the keys is silver or nickel... "
I guess Yamaha is full of huey when they claim Hamilton Plating sounds "warmer."
Those poor deluded Japanese!
...................Paul Aviles
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2010-04-26 21:44
Yamaha aren't alone in this - remember Buffet's claim about gold plated pillars on their Elites? And they're not alone either with the gold plated pillar guff.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: graham
Date: 2010-04-27 14:31
Good article; but if only he had not said "of course" so early in it. What a turn-off. There is no "of course" in a discussion like this.
When I was much younger it was fairly often said to me that clarinets that had been played by loud players usually sounded loud whoever played them because they had been "opened up" by the loud playing they had experienced. Apparently, experienced makers in particular could detect the change that loud playing had had on these instruments.
It always struck me as being a bit like "Herbie Rides Again" but is there any good reason why that would occur?
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