 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Todd Horton
Date: 2009-03-18 20:36
Please help I play a Bufet R13, but I played a selmer recital and loved the sound and tone, what vintage model clarinets have a dark full tone.
Cheers
Todd
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Author: xarkon
Date: 2009-03-18 21:39
Take a look at:
http://www.woodwind.org/clarinet/Study/Leesonnicedark.html
Dave
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2009-03-19 07:14
Excellent collection. Thanks!
The one that sums it all up very nicely:
- "I know everyone uses the words. And we all sort of agree and smile. But I find these terms full of doo-doo, imprecise, non-descriptive, and of unknown origin. I think that the elbow patches on my suit jacket are responsible for the darkness of my sound. And who is to say no? What reasonable, viable, scientifically sound (no pun intended) experiments have ever established one single truthful thing about the use of the term 'dark' and the term 'bright' when referring to the character of sound of any wind instrument?" -
Steve
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Author: Nessie1
Date: 2009-03-19 16:40
Perhaps there are only really two kinds of sound - one you like and one you don't! (In a given situation).
Vanessa.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-03-19 17:04
There is no one clarinet that gives players a dark tone. Everyone needs to find the instrument in combination with your mouthpiece, barrel, reed and of course, the way you play, to find what gives you the "dark" tone or what ever that you're looking for. There is no one piece of equipment that fits all, no one mouthpiece, reed, ligature or anything that does that for all players. Check out a former recent topic I posted titled "Finding your Tone" you might find some answers there. ESP (Peabody/BSO) http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: sinkdraiN
Date: 2009-03-19 17:29
It's real hard to put a definition to dark and bright
...but, I sound more covered on a Leblanc Opus than I do an R13...whatever that means?
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Author: rtmyth
Date: 2009-03-19 18:01
Timbre is what you may be looking for. There are many definitions, mostly subjective. One is: the instantaneous cross section of a tone, in terms of the number, intensity, distribution and phase of the harmonics. Well, yes!. My advice: listen to timbres you consider to be dark and therefore desirable, and work to imitate them. Others say you should develop your own timbre, but there is no reason to believe that process will produce the timbre you or anyone else might like.
richard smith
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2009-03-19 19:29
Hi -Liq, Perhaps, if stained, visually but perhaps not tonally ! Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: LarryBocaner ★2017
Date: 2009-03-19 20:04
Anecdotal experience: While Michael Rusinek was playing in the National Symphony he switched from Buffet R13's to Selmer Recital clarinets. I can say without reservation that his sound changed -- fewer high overtones, darker! Sounded great both ways to me.
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Author: stevensfo
Date: 2009-03-19 21:33
Help! You've lost me.
So, is a dark sound due to fewer higher partials/overtones?
If, so shouldn't it be relatively easy to examine this in a physics lab?
How do you control this in a clarinet? I thought that air waves entering the clarinet are produced by the MP and barrel, so how does the clarinet filter out those overtones?
Steve
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Author: LarryBocaner ★2017
Date: 2009-03-19 22:29
Well, the Recital is a heavier clarinet-- outside dimensions significantly larger than those of - say an R13. Could it be that there are partials radiated by the exterior walls of the clarinet? Flute players are into this, with different players preferring different alloys of gold, silver and platinum. To repeat myself, my "science" is strictly anecdotal. I know what I hear, but not necessarily cause and effect.
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2009-03-20 01:31
I think it more important to emphasize a good sound and good tuning over dark/bright....many dark sounding players can be way out of tune and or vice/versa you know what I mean>?
As for physics I leave that for scientists...tone is important for sure but you also gotta use it!!
David Dow
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Author: kdk
Date: 2009-03-20 01:45
I don't think this is true, at least in any physical sense. The problem isn't that the physical components of any given sound can't be precisely measured with scientific instruments and techniques. It's that even having made careful measurements, there's little or no agreement among the musicians to whom any of this matters about what the words mean, how they relate to the sound you've measured. For measurements to be of any help, we'd first all have to agree on a concept of "dark sound."
Sometimes this kind of agreement can actually be achieved within a limited circle of musicians and students all modeling on the same examples. If my teacher calls his sound dark, and I accept that his sound is dark (because I revere his playing and accept as revealed truth anything he tells me), then he and and I can perhaps agree on whether this or that particular piece of equipment sounds darker or brighter when I play it. If several others who study with the same teacher all adopt (accept) the same understanding of "dark," they can have a grand conversation, not only about equipment, but about which other players outside the circle have darker, and which have brighter sounds. (We spent many hours when I was a student doing just that.) But if another teacher in the next town describes his sound as "dark" and he doesn't sound like my teacher, then my teacher's circle of students and those of the other teacher (assuming they are as accepting of his concept) will not find the same sound qualities "dark" - no matter what measurements come out of a scientific analysis. It isn't the measurements that will be in conflict. They will simply describe what's there. It's the concepts of the people involved in the conversation that differ.
We can measure all we like and find differences in sounds that we hadn't even dreamed were there, but it gets us no closer to meaningfully attaching descriptive words to what we find - at least, not words that are borrowed from the realms of other senses. Bright and dark are, after all, directly visual attributes, not aural ones.
Karl
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Author: xarkon
Date: 2009-03-20 04:11
Steve wrote:
>How do you control this in a clarinet? I thought that air waves entering
>the clarinet are produced by the MP and barrel, so how does the clarinet
>filter out those overtones?
Well, by undercutting tone holes, among (probably) other things. See O. Lee Gibson's book on clarinet acoustics, for example.
Dave
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2009-03-20 06:04
>> The ear is more sensitive than a machine - we hear what the scientists can't measure. <<
But scientific experiments are not just done by machines. A big part of them (some of them at least) is statistics of comparing many different ears. A good experiment for this does take into consideration what people can hear, but also cancels their biased opinions and make it objective. This type of experiment disproved many opinions from musicians.
>> Flute players are into this, with different players preferring different alloys of gold, silver and platinum. To repeat myself, my "science" is strictly anecdotal <<
There is a very big experiment comparing severn identical flutes made of (and/or plated with) different materials. It is a very good one and compares accurately both with machines and with many humans listening. The players are seven professionals (I think including from Vienna Philharmonic and others). It basically shows how all the opinions the musicians have vary too much and is the same as random guesses. In addition it disproves a lot of opinion like the more expensive the material the better, etc. A shorter version of this experiment in English is online (I don't remember the address sorry).
Post Edited (2009-03-20 06:19)
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Author: Ed
Date: 2009-03-20 15:57
I have always found that drinking Guinness gives me a darker tone!
![[toast]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley15.gif)
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2009-03-20 20:33
Ed - don't care for Guiness, but found that Irish Harp [lager] gave me a "bright" tone. Will research ! Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: rtmyth
Date: 2009-03-21 19:33
"We hear what scientists can't measure". No doubt. The ear has a nonlinear response which depends on sound pressure and frequency, and physical condtion of the listener's ears. Very complex but many subjective experiments have provided some general results. For example: when is a sound intensity doubled according to your estimate? From such experiments with a large number of individuals, roughly when the db level is increased by 10 db. Lots of literature available.
richard smith
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2009-03-21 19:54
rtmyth wrote:
> For example: when is a sound intensity doubled
> according to your estimate?
Not sound intensity - loudness
Sound intensity is doubled at approx. 3 db, an order of magnitude at 10 db (10 x log(10)). Apparent loudness is approximated doubled when sound intensity is increased by 10 db.
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Author: rtmyth
Date: 2009-03-21 20:40
The human estimate of sound intensity being doubled was also called doubling of loudness, according to my profs, of 70 years ago, but maybe I heard them incorrectly. Those sones and phons always confused me.
richard smith
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2009-03-21 20:54
rtmyth wrote:
> The human estimate of sound intensity being doubled was also
> called doubling of loudness, according to my profs, of 70 years
> ago, but maybe I heard them incorrectly. Those sones and phons
> always confused me.
Loudness is subjective and varies by person; sound intensity is objective and can be defined by some quantitative measurement.
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Author: Malcolm Martland
Date: 2009-03-23 16:19
I always find my Boosey and Hawkes clarinets have a really dark thunderous lower register (Bb & A Emperor with a 1010 mouthpiece) compared with the beautifully warm and light tones of my Leblanc LL - but the bores are different.
And Guinness consumption is undoubtedly of benefit in fluidity of tone and mind! Hey do any of you soak reeds in beer?
Malcolm
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Author: graham
Date: 2009-03-23 18:01
Emperors should be played on 926 mouthpieces. A 1010 mouthpiece on an Emperor will not play in tune.
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Author: haberc
Date: 2009-03-24 00:20
Yes, what about mouthpieces??
I play a Selmer 9* gorgeous clarinet.
with my Vytass Krass I'm dark
with my Otto Link slant signature four on the floor double barrel, supercharged tone edge 3* I'm am one bright player
with my Vibrator V8 I'm somewhere in the middle
all with the same reed
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Author: Malcolm Martland
Date: 2009-03-24 10:26
"Emperors should be played on 926 mouthpieces. A 1010 mouthpiece on an Emperor will not play in tune."
........probably technically right but I'm a great believer in what works for you is OK. I found a 1010 muthpiece in a bag of bits my father-in-law gave me and the playability, volume and tone - for me - were better than the supplied B&H mouthpieces - and I had no tuning issues either!
I think you can get pretty respectable results on these clarinets with a 5RV too - you have to keep an open mind - trial and error is a wonderful tool!
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