 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Tisk Tisk
Date: 2002-01-21 18:23
Is it the thick wall that gives the clarinet the dark sound??? Why is the clarinet the only woodwind with the thick wall??? ( Comparing with the flute, oboe, sax, piccolo, and Basoon[?])
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Dee
Date: 2002-01-21 19:07
Probably to hold up under the stress of manufacturing. There's been a video on public TV showing clarinets shattering during the high speed spinning/machining process.
Flutes and saxes are made of metal and metal is stronger than wood plus the manufacturing process is different. Thus the walls do not need to be thick.
The oboe has a smaller diameter than the clarinet. A small diameter "hoop" is stronger than a large diameter "hoop." Thus the larger diameter item needs to have thicker walls to carry the same load.
Some brands and models of clarinets do have thinner walls than others although I've not seen any as thin as oboe walls (close though). But I imagine more care must be used in the manufacturing then.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: ONEN
Date: 2002-01-21 19:42
Interestingly, I was reading an acoustics report (since lost) into how much energy from musical instruments is released at frequences higher than those we can hear.
For cymbals, an incredible 40%(!) of the energy released was above our ability to hear. However the clarinet was one of few instruments whose range was completley withing the human hearing range. This is probably a side effect of the design as opposed to a planned phenomenon.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Joris van den Berg
Date: 2002-01-22 09:05
The reason the walls are so thick is that the tone-holes need a certain length to give the right tone colour. That's why there's short tonehole tubes soldered onto metal clarinets, to give about the same hole-length
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: IHL
Date: 2002-01-22 10:50
what would a metal clarinet sound like without the tone hole tubes then? Like a saxophone?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2002-01-22 12:40
I don't know what a metal clarinet without the tone hole tubes would sound like, but it wouldn't sound like a saxophone. A saxophone gets its characteristic sound from its conical shape as opposed to a clarinet's cylindrical shape.
If I were to guess, I would say that the length of the clarinet's tone holes is due to the fact that clarinets were all originally wooden and, as per Dee's answer, needed a certain minimal wall thickness due primarily to structural considerations. When metal clarinets came along, the metal allowed the wall thickness to be much less. The tubes were probably put on the tone holes for a number of reasons including allowing the same hole placement/spacing on the instrument and keeping the player's fingers in the same positions, both lengthwise along the instrument and radially. (Clarinetists would not like an instrument that required them to change their finger postions from what they were used to.) Maintaining the same tonal characteristics may also have been a consideration. In other words, keeping the same bore & tonehole geometry pretty much guaranteed that the instrument would sound and play the same as any other clarinet.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Joris van den Berg
Date: 2002-01-22 14:44
A clarinet with the thin holes would not sound like a saxophone (Like Don Poulsen said). It would sound a lot more metal-like. This is for example the reason a boehm flute sounds much more metal like then a barok flute: the barok flute has smaller, longer holes. Of course it was originally an accident that walls were so thick (easier in production), the reason they don't build clarinet's like boehm flute's is however the sound.
Joris
(references:
`Practical consequences of tone holes non-linear behaviour'
Jean-Pierre Dalmont, Eric Ducasse, Sebatien Ollivier
`M. Castellengo and L. Forest ``Metamorphoses de la flute traversiere au 19eme siecle : esthetique musicale, acoustique et facture''
proceedings of the symposium Acoustique et instruments anciens (distributed by the SFA), 85-100, Paris 1998
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Dee
Date: 2002-01-22 15:44
A metal clarinet without the raised tone holes would still sound like a clarinet but there would be intonation problems and tone quality problems unless the instrument were redesigned to get a proper intonation and tone.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2002-01-22 16:15
For its bore diameter the upper half of an oboe has far thicker walls than a clarinet does. Otherwise the instrument would be far too flimsy. Without looking, the wall is prbably thicker than the bore diameter.
Same for bassoon.
Wall thickness is partly governed by the need to secure the key posts.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
