Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2020-11-08 23:25
Paul Aviles wrote:
> In my experience (no irony intended) the reed needs to interact
> with the mouthpiece to achieve all the acoustic end results of
> which we speak and that adds all the other variables such as
> overall footprint of the window, length, width, shape,
> thickness of rails........then facing variables, etc etc.
>
Well, I suppose that seems obvious. But it isn't really directly related to my question. How do various mouthpiece parameters affect the reed's vibrations (other than potentially just cutting them off in one way or another)? What *are* the results in terms of increased or damped harmonic content and where on the reed do the effects occur?
>
> Also print being what it is, I often get chided for NOT putting
> in the qualifier "I think....." whenever I leave it out of a
> post. I think most readers want to read a post as if it is
> gospel without the qualifier, or rather, take offense that that
> was the intent.
>
The problem isn't leaving out "I think," it's saying "it is" or, more strongly, "it must be" when others' experience tells them something different. The 2nd sentence confuses me - I don't really understand what you mean - but it also isn't directly related to my question, which tries to put aside or by-pass the kind of "do this to get that" processes that we all rely on to get through every day.
> Since much of what clarinet craft is as much art as science, no
> one writing a treatise on any one complex aspect wants to be
> mistaken for trying to present the "final word "
>
I'm denying the art. I want to know what the state of the science is. To the extent they're separable, it ought to be possible to discuss one without repudiating the other.
"I believe" and "I think" are subjective reactions. They are absolutely valid as day-to-day guidance for day-to-day activities. The kind of experience-based decisions we make like where to scrape to free up the response of a stuffy reed are useful and don't need elaborate explanations from physical science. For one thing, we often don't have time to reason through an explanation. We just need a result. Now. So, if we think we know what to do, we just do it.
But if there is observable, quantifiable underlying science available to support - or contradict - those belief-based daily actions, I think it's worth while to look for it. Not to solve a problem that needs an immediate solution, but to build the knowledge on which we may base future understandings and modify - or keep - what we currently think is true.
What, in general, is my reed doing while I'm playing low chalumeau notes or notes higher in the compass? What is it doing when I play very softly? Very loudly? When I get a squeak? How does the reed behave differently when the sound changes over a register break from when we are able to cross the same break seamlessly, with no change in tone? We all have experience-based ways to make chalumeau notes sound richer, altissimo notes less strident, squeaks less likely, and register changes smooth. I'm asking what, based on harmonic divisions of the reed's vibration, contributes to the sound quality and its variations, to unintended harmonic notes (squeaks), to register crossings that sound like two different instruments are at work. What's going on at the level of reed vibration and how can the reed's physical properties - mostly its dimensions - contribute to changing any of this, but particularly in terms of tone "color"?
I suspect some of the information I'm looking for is available in the writings of Arthur Benade and others, but I find that the nitty-gritty explanations tend to involve math that I can't follow. I can wish I had paid more attention in my high school and college calc classes, but that's now water under the bridge. I'm not denigrating "I think" or "I believe," but the physical world exists, and I'm simply asking what anyone can say about it.
Karl
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The Clarinet BBoard
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