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Re: Bell Covers, Masks With Mouth Holes, Instrument Covers, Etc... GIVE IT UP!

Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2021-05-03 04:04

The paper studying clarinet playing indicates a significant plume of aerosols is expelled from the bell - there's some pretty cool videos of it. That surprised me. Higher pitches seemed to produce higher velocity plumes. What came out the clarinet bell was comparable to what comes out a singers mouth. Bell covers greatly reduced the plumes from the bell.

The study did not thoroughly check escape plumes from tone holes. All that was done in that regard was to take measurements when playing C5, which has an open tone hole near the bottom of the instrument, with a) just the bell inside the measurement box, and b) with the bell and the open tone hole inside the box. The result was little if any difference in measured aerosols - having bell covers made a far greater difference. Note, they also measured CO2 emissions, and those were higher with the tone hole in the box.

Aerosol emission via tone holes should be studied further. However, this study strongly indicates that a lot of aerosols are expelled from the clarinet bell, and that bell covers stop a high percentage of it. It indicates that bell covers work. It also might indicate that, while sound is emitted from tone holes, and CO2 is, most of the expelled aerosols come out the bell.

You can download the paper here:

https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/articles/hq37vp75r

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