 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2012-01-05 16:46
Here is an interesting extracted contribution to the subject of matching a saxophone mouthpiece to the instrument. I cribbed it from the "Small Chamber Mouthpieces" Thread on the Mouthpiece Work Yahoo Group.
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MouthpieceWork>
which I find very interesting.
I imagine that a clarinet tech would start by balancing the 12ths and then adjusting BOTH the barrel and the mouthpiece, ... It looks like the sax thinking doesn't swap saxophone necks like we swap tuning barrels.
Posted by: "MartinMods" lancelotburt@yahoo.com lancelotburt
Wed Jan 4, 2012 1:25 pm (PST)
I trust the total silence in the group to mean you are all busy trying this out perhaps. The method I use, which is similar to that which Paul uses, I got for free from Arthur Benade. It is printed right there in his published papers from the 1970's, and since I first started reading him 4 years ago, I have heard the key phrases tossed back and forth on the various saxophone forums and seen them quoted in many a doctoral thesis, absent of any
apparent comprehension as to what they actually mean in their practical application. I'll paraphrase:
1. Saxophone players should be as meticulous in matching their mouthpieces to their horns as oboist/bassoonists are in fiddling with their reeds. That sounds nice. We know about volume
and frs/frequency, but did anyone ever bother to go see just what it is that oboists/bassoonists actually do? There must be something there we can learn from. I don't see any orchestras tuning up to the soprano saxophone's concert A.
2. That meticulousness includes tweaking the volume/frs to get the optimal results. That means that once we got into the ballpark using the numbers, we abandon them to score.
Benade's oboe reed balancing routine boils down to this when related to the saxophone:
We are well aware of the volume induced tendencies of the conical air column - how at a 1/1 volume ratio and lower, they induce sharpness in the upper registers, and a bit lower than 1/1, those tendencies lessen and then become inverted. We are also aware that a large chambered mouthpiece increases those tendencies in the upper registers compared to a small chambered
mouthpiece - the frs of the two are different. To eliminate the conical air column effects for the played instrument we must abandon the A=440 pitch center for a moment, and anchor the mouthpiece volume (i.e. where it is placed on the cork) so that the low end of our overblown tube (D1/D2) has optimal resonance alignment - it must produce a perfect octave. Easy. Pull out (or push in) until D1/D2 is a perfect octave - and here is where "meticulous" comes into play. Tune the octave using a tuner so that the center of your unavoidable pitch variations is at 0 cents deviation. One uses a steady, normal embouchure making absolutely no adjustments. No adjustments. No adjustments. We are halfway there.
Now, unless we had a perfect mouthpiece to start with, our pitch center is off, as is the resonance alignment of the short end of the overblown tube
(C#2/C#3). Whatever we do to fix this, we must maintain the initial, optimal mouthpiece volume alignment (Not the place on the cork, but the perfect D1/D2 octave). Realize that the initial "pulling out/pushing in" adjustment changed two aspects of the mouthpiece, the volume AND the length, for a pretty gross change in the stretching of the scale.
We now make gradual adjustments to the length alone, or frs - the pitch tendency of the chamber type in the upper registers, using the shortest overblown tube as our reference. Making the chamber fatter while maintaining volume, raises the overall played pitch of the mouthpiece, affecting the upper register more than the lower. Making the chamber narrower while maintaining volume lowers it.
Between repeated steps of checking the D1/D2 octave for perfection and then making the appropriate chamber geometry adjustment, raising or lowering the pitch to improve the C#2/C#3 octave, the short tube will come into perfect alignment (same 0 cent deviation at center of pitch wobble) . With both ends of the basic tube perfectly aligned, the ends (bell tones/palm keys) and in-between (middle register) take care of themselves. The entire scale is within 5 cents of flat, perfectly situated in the A=440 pitch center.
One experiences a new playing and listening sensation - one voice - no perception of register changes. The sound gets a silvery "sheen" to it as the horn resonates more perfectly with the cosmos - really. Now, after you experience this, from both the playing and listening standpoint, it becomes addictive. You immediately notice the conical air column effect qualities that you left behind, to varied degrees, in the playing of others - everywhere (almost - some got lucky or were smart with their setup). It sticks out like wrong notes in Mozart. You can even start listening to the silvery sheen evenness more than the notes they are playing, as you realize that hearing the conical air column effects is tiring, even annoying.
IMO, this is the future of saxophone development - refinement.
Bob Phillips
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Author: alto gether
Date: 2012-01-05 18:58
Good! But the problems of a cylindrical air column overblowing at a twelfth are bound to be different from conical/octave. I'd be astonished if any combination of mouthpiece and barrel could for example, make a clarinet that intonates perfectly at A440 work properly at 435 or 445. I love being astonished - will somebody who has done the work chip in here?
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Author: DrewSorensenMusic
Date: 2012-01-05 21:46
I dunno, every horn has different pitch tendencies. Maybe just better to know them and adjust accordingly. There's so many factors like placement of octave vent, embrouchure structure, angle of attack. Too many variables. The way my horn play (or maybe the way I play my horn), without adjustment, my c#s are sharp and my low d is flat, and middle d sharp, and high d flat. I know most pitch tendancies on all my horns, and adjust. I even have to adjust when tuning, but that's because i don't like where my f# (alto) rides ( a little high).
I didn't even know they allowed sopranos in orchestras. But oboists have pitch issues, and some would agree that it is strange that oboes tune the orchestra.
Interesting info.
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Author: Buster
Date: 2012-01-06 00:54
Don't know if my Mark VI can resonate "more perfectly with the cosmos" with this method.... but the reasoning behind it doesn't transfer over to the clarinet.
(I'll speak in concrete terms just for simplicity, none of these shapes are "perfect.")
The relationship between a conical-bore saxophone and its cylindrical-bore mouthpiece is wholly different than a cylindrical-bore clarinet and it's cylindrical-bore mouthpiece.
Basically:
-The clarinet mouthpiece is a continuance of the cylindrical bore.
-The saxophone mouthpiece is a divergence from the tapering conical bore.
Saxophone mouthpiece geometry is adjusted to compensate for this divergence, thus the availability of all of the large, medium, small chamber mouthpieces and complex internal shapes. (check out Theo Wanne's work to see some truly complex saxophone chambers)
But I really would like to hear my Selmer (or my clarinets for that matter) vibrate in perfect "harmony with the cosmos" to see what I've been missing.
-Jason
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