Comments on: Does material affect tone quality in woodwind instruments?: Why scientists and musicians just can’t seem to agree

By: rick

rick — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 04:13:34 +0000

I’d like to expand on the paragraph that starts with: “Materials may affect they way an instrument sounds before anyone ever plays it—by affecting the way the instrument is made.” I have read that wooden flutes sound different than metal ones because of the extra thickness of the wood and the manner in which the tone holes are made. Metal flutes have collars either drawn or soldered around the holes, but the holes on wooden flutes are drilled into the material and the surrounding material is level with the hole. I don’t know how that could translate into a sound difference, but it’s an example of the material affecting the way the instrument is made.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:35:00 +0000

For a very interesting read about the use of wood and clarinets, see Tom Ridenour’s piece called “The Grenadilla Myth” :

http://www.ridenourclarinetproducts.com/grenadillamyth.htm

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:22:36 +0000

While very interesting, I’m not sure that there is much there in the way of reliability . Unfortunately, cane reeds change in sound and sometimes quite drastically. So repeating the same study after playing on the same reeds for 20 minutes and THEN conducting the experiment could result in an entirely different data set. Also, I can attest that Legere reeds can sound and play better on some mouthpieces than others.

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:05:55 +0000

My daughter and I just finished her science fair project in which we double blinded sound samples from several cane, Legere, and Fibracell reeds. Four different professional musicians listened to the reeds and graded them on darkness, clarity, roundness, resonance, articulation and range. (Argue all you want about the choices, we went in knowing little about the physics of sound and came out with a ton of knowledge.)
We found that in all cases accept articulation, the Fibracell was the favorite, and an overall Favorite in “beauty”, a totally subjective quality. (Legere was the least favorite and Vandoren cane was in the middle) Although not ALL grades agreed, there were only a few that had one judge grade in disagreement with the other three. It was pretty solid data.
Additionally, spectragraphs and sonograms agreed with the ratings, showing physical proof of what the judges rated.
Now a few caveats: My daughter liked playing the Legere best, and the Fibracell least. I was a bit surprised by the data because the Fibracell actually “closed up” in the higher octaves when played in an articulated chromatic scale. (I swear to god I never thought I would be using a sentence like that).
Also, we included a Vandoren 2.5 because we had read the hardness numbers are not always accurate and the Fibracells are softer than their number suggests.
The 2.5 cane reed BLEW all the other reeds out of the “contest” in every catagory!!!
One of the music professionals helping with the project told us the Fibracell has a softer spine, that is why it failed like it did. Also, different cut mouthpieces favor different hardness of reed.
We are going to do a small test tonight to see if a Legere 2.5 is rated better but due to a delivery error we don’t have time to include it in the science fair project. (Nuts)
I hope you all find this interesting, and we would LOVE to hear your comments.
I think this project (which grew out of proportion to a 7th grade science fair) should be repeated using more parameters such as different mouthpieces and reed hardnesses.

By: Michal Kopecky

Michal Kopecky — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:30:58 +0000

“True enough, but the material that sets the vibration in motion and the material against which the vibrating air moves does affect the quality of the sound. Consider a gong. Would it sound the same if made of plastic? No! It’s the brass of the gong that initiates the vibration of the surrounding air, giving it the quality of the sound that you hear.”

In case of woodwind instruments the material that sets the vibration in motion is the wooden reed mounted on your mouthpiece. Destpite of the fact that the saxophone is made of brass which is metal, it is categorised as woodwind instrument, because the sound vibration is created by a wooden reed. The material of which a woodwind instrument is made only shapes the sound column. When the soundwave leaves the instrument it has certain wavelenght and frequency. And these two properties are not affected by the body material of the woodwind instrument. But shape of the body and expecially the shape of the mouthpiece and the quality and material of the reed affect this absolutely. Sorry for my english.

By: Art Marshall

Art Marshall — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:06:19 +0000

This subject is highly interesting; I agree with Dan Kennedy. The smoother the inside bore of the clarinet is, the better it sounds. Plastic bodies can be extremely smooth. The drawback of a plastic clarinet is however, that the body is not so much affected by the surrounding temperature as wooden clarinets. So when the pitch of the wooden clarinet is going up during playing, the plastic one does no go up in pitc at teh same rate. i notice that when playing duets with my students. I play German system Wurlitzers and I alwya wonder how it is that my good studenst are able to draw a good sound from their plastic Buffets or Bundys. In temperate climate zones this duet playing needs a fequent intervals of retuning. Art Marshall

By: Dan Kennedy

Dan Kennedy — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 14:42:28 +0000

I was wondering if the way in which breath moisture condenses on the bore of a clarinet affects the sound.

I coated the inside of my Selmer Series 10 clarinet with a 50/50 mixture of liquid dish soap and water. I did not like the way it played.

Removing the coating and re-oiling the clarinet returned it’s fine sound.

Plastic Clarinets are sold with a mirror like bore. I have found that removing this mirror like finish with very fine (0000) steel wool improves the sound. (I only do this when I am repadding the clarinet.)

Perhaps clarinet makers hobble plastic clarinets so as not to interfer
with the sales of “Professional” wooden clarinets.

If I was buying a new clarinet it would be a Buffet Greenline.

Then I could say to players with a traditional clarinet:

“That sounds good; too bad it’s made of wood”

Dan Kennedy

By: John Clemmer

John Clemmer — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 11:51:39 +0000

What? No comment on reeds and mouthpieces??!! And CHOPS??? I was with a friend one day in a music shop, and he took his mouthpiece, put it on a metal clarinet that looked like an old beaten up lamp, and proceeded to fill the store with the most beautiful clarinet voice imaginable. I’ll never forget that day, it was magic!

By: Daniel McBrearty

Daniel McBrearty — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 23:18:39 +0000

For years I have played a brass SML tenor sax, lacquered, dating from the early 60s. A fine instrument with a big sound.

A few years back I came across another in a market, bought it and had it serviced so that iit played perfectly. An identical instrument, except it was chrome (yes chrome not silver) plated.

I could not tell the difference between the sounds of them.

I now own two Selmer 10S clarinets. There *is* a slight sound difference – but I think that may because one has leather pads, the other the more usual white ones. That one is going to get a repad …

By: Bret

Bret — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 15:30:06 +0000

Thanks for your comments. I have to disagree with you on a few points, based on my reading of Benade and others regarding the physics of woodwinds. Again, I'm not a real scientist, so I welcome any clarifications of concepts I may have misunderstood.I agree that in the case of a gong, which is an idiophone, the vibrations of the material itself are significant. But in the case of a flute (for example), which is an aerophone, I maintain that the material does not "set the vibration in motion" (Dr. Joe Wolfe gives an excellent summary of how this actually works); nor does the material interact in a significant way with the air column, other than to give it its shape (see Backus's article, "Effect of Wall Material on the Steady-State Tone Quality of Woodwind Instruments, JASA, October 1964, which specifically addresses this point. To my knowledge, this article is not freely available online, but check your local library).No doubt Coltman would have preferred to use flutes made entirely of the same material for his experiment. But this would have created an even more fallacious result, since, as you and I know, every headjoint plays differently. There's no verifiable scientific evidence (yet?) that the material of the headjoint have the "most impact" on tone. (However, there is a great deal of advertising from headjoint makers that makes this claim, invariably suggesting that the most shiny and expensive metals sound the best.)I do think you make a good point about the care that instruments made from nicer materials are likely to receive.