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 Buzzing sound around the ears
Author: RunnerSean 
Date:   2012-08-21 09:01

When I play in the practice room, I get this irritating vibrating, buzzing 'effect' around my ears as a side from the tone itself, especially when I play fast passages in the upper register.

What are they?

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 Re: Buzzing sound around the ears
Author: tictactux 2017
Date:   2012-08-21 10:38

Do you have a mouthpiece patch (cushion)? If not, vibration from the mouthpiece will propagate via teeth to your skull which has a similar effect as the doctor placing a tuning fork onto your head.

This also can happen when corks are a wee bit loose and eg the mouthpiece vibrates faintly against the barrel, especially where wood/plastic touches wood.

Just for test, pull every joint on the clarinet apart so that there is a faint gap betwween joints. Put a patch on the mouthpiece or play double-lip. See if the buzz persists, else gradually undo the aforementioned preparations until the buzz reappears.

--
Ben

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 Re: Buzzing sound around the ears
Author: BobD 
Date:   2012-08-21 11:31

The practice room probably contains soundproofing material which allows you to hear things you wouldn't ordinarily hear.......TicTac comments probably accurate

Bob Draznik

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 Re: Buzzing sound around the ears
Author: Lelia Loban 2017
Date:   2012-08-21 13:41

Notes on a clarinet definitely can make objects in the room resonate. If I stand in just the right spot, certain notes on a clarinet, especially a contra-alto, produce tones from my bodhrán (Celtic drum) that hangs on the wall of my home office, near where I practice. I get the best effects with my bass sax. Its lowest notes can make lightweight, small objects hum and "walk" right off the top of my piano. I can imagine such sound effects would greatly annoy some people but I rarely do anything to stop these accompaniments!

I've even been known to warn visiting musicians that if they practice in the guest bedroom, which is on the other side of a sliding door to my cluttered office, they may discover that the house is haunted by the ghost of a peg-legged Union soldier. He was a musician who died during the Civil War's Battle of the Peach Orchard, fought on the land where my house was built nearly a century later. He joins in and practices o the bodhrán and anything else that's loose, whenever anyone plays up there. Of course *some* people might aver that the stumping sound of his wooden leg really comes from a poorly-secured HVAC duct that's too much trouble to fix because the job would involve opening the wall, but ....

Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.

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 Re: Buzzing sound around the ears
Author: Garth Libre 
Date:   2012-08-22 00:23

Every thing in a room has an inherent and natural resonance. When you hit a certain note on the clarinet that has that resonance or a note on the clarinet that has a harmonic that matches the thing in the room, you get a sympathetic vibration. This is why putting a stereo in a room with something like a piano is an acoustic mistake. Windows, room spaces, plates, vases, anything really can vibrate in sympathy with a clarinet. Find the vibrating object whether it is your skull, or your furniture and deaden it if you can (tooth patch, acoustic panels etc). Your problem will disappear.

Garth, 305-981-4705. garthlibre@yahoo.com

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 Re: Buzzing sound around the ears
Author: RunnerSean 
Date:   2012-08-22 05:45

Dear all, thanks for your comments.

I play on a well-maintained instrument and also with a mouthpiece patch. The vibration seems not to originate from objects in the room. They tend to get more obvious when I play in a larger practice room though.

My guess is that perhaps they are the 'resonance' or harmonics of the tone, which I tend to hear more in the practice room than in anywhere else.

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 Re: Buzzing sound around the ears
Author: Campana 
Date:   2012-08-22 08:20

Perhaps you are hearing a host of reflected sounds all arriving milliseconds apart from walls and ceiling. Is the practice room rather spartan? Ordinary rooms have soft furnishings and curtains and things which take the coherency out of relected sounds.

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 Re: Buzzing sound around the ears
Author: Paula S 
Date:   2012-08-22 22:50

I play in a a room in the house with a 6ft grand piano and my usual clarion sets off many of it's strings. The bizarre thing is I listened to a recording of the Finzi concerto a few days ago and I hadn't realised how 'dark' it was with the string orchestra.( I have played it lots of times with the piano reduction). So I set about trying to make a darker, more focussed sound and directed more down the mouthpiece and used flatter vowel sounds. The piano strings stopped vibrating but the sound seemed to be exciting the metal in the cast iron fireplace instead!

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