Mazzeo Clarinet Manual Muscle
I had been looking at a few of the acoustics discussions that recently popped up and thought about them in the grand scheme of things. I realized that they're concerned with improving existing instruments. That got me to thinking: is there anything more to be invented, as far as musical instruments are concerned? Here's another point. The saxophone was arguably an improvement over clarinets and double-reeds because, well, it's louder. It also has a tone which is (arguably, of course, stay with me) between clarinet and trumpet: more edgy than one, less strident than the other.
The albert, boehm, mazzeo, and oehler clarinet systems? What are they, and how are they different? I looked on Wikipedia, but it was unsurprisingly uninformative. Are they different fingering setups??? And finally, which one is the common one that we use? The Clarinet BBoard. I hope nobody gets the idea that the Mazzeo clarinet was never used by a professional clarinetist in. (either manually. Rosario Mazzeo, Mazzeo Clarinet Manual (Philadelphia: Henri Elkan, 1960). Rosario Mazzeo, The Clarinet: Excellence and Artistry (Sherman Oaks, California: Alfred Publishing Co., 1981).
Sarrus and Roth also tried improving double-reeds by creating metal, sax-like instruments that project a lot more than, say, your standard contabassoon. However, these instruments sound like. Loud double-reeds. The problem is that Sarrusophones and Rothophones (as well as other double-reed improvements, like the Heckelphone) are rarely seen or heard.
The saxophone is. Arguably, electronic instruments are an advance, but they can be lumped into two categories: instruments used to replicate the sounds of EXISTING instruments and instruments used to create, well, 'synthy' sounds you rarely hear outside of pop music. So, will there be another advance?
What would it be and why? In what respect? If you want high and rather piercing, you have the flute family.
From what I recall - again, I'm not a flute player; my sister is and I've heard her complain - there is a bit of a problem with flutes in that they don't seem to have that much dynamic range. If you want high and mellower, you have the violin and clarinet families. While I think you can successfully argue that both of these instrument families have problems, such as overblowing a 12th and not having enough range (the violin has had range added throughout the years; reference Paganini on that one), they're not exactly bad choices for melody and higher. Well, considered from a 1970's standpoint, it is a bit more complicated.
Looking at it through the eyes of someone who is accustomed to playing a double register key bass clarinet or saxophone, it's (as our British friends are fond of saying) 'a doddle'; the operation of the second register key becomes second nature once you are accustomed to it. (I currently have a couple of non-automatic register key bass clarinets, and I pass to and from the one that's kept in working order with no difficulty whatsoever. And, mind you, I am not God's gift to bass clarinet playing.) Complexity in clarinets is nothing compared to complexity in oboes. If they can live with it, so can we.
(The main problem that I saw in the two Marchi clarinets that I have handled is that both had relatively new (and uncompressed) corks, which (in both cases) led to unskilled hands causing damage to the second register key system during assembly. Stupid, but that's what happens when curious people are in a hurry to look at something new.
Well at least the guitar would be in tune Actually, I invision a marrage of wind synth and traditional design. Something like touch sensitive keys with feedback wired to micro servos opperating the key cups. The body would be made of brass or wood. You would use your choice of mouthpiece and reed. The whole system could be powered by the energy the finger and body movement. Much like a kinetic watch. In the end, you'd have a lighter weight instrument with less moving parts.
Mazzeo Clarinet Manual Muscle Pain
It be designed with high end pro use in mind. Well at least the guitar would be in tune Actually, I invision a marrage of wind synth and traditional design. Something like touch sensitive keys with feedback wired to micro servos opperating the key cups.
The body would be made of brass or wood. You would use your choice of mouthpiece and reed. The whole system could be powered by the energy the finger and body movement. Much like a kinetic watch. In the end, you'd have a lighter weight instrument with less moving parts.
It be designed with high end pro use in mind. That's the sort of thing I'd imagined too. There are lots of possibilities once fingering is mechanically decoupled from closing holes.
Formerly complicated mechanisms like and articulated G# or the saxophone's octave mechanism become simple programming jobs. You can even have auto transposition. The same instrument could become a clarinet in A, Bb or C at the flip of a switch. A clarinet for sax players could have fingerings that appear to overblow at an octave even though the instrument overblows at a 12th. Just the finger pattern to closed hole mapping needs to change.
That might be a bit confusing to play at first as resistance would change when you weren't expecting it but you would probably adapt. Well, it seems my original topic has now morphed into, 'What improvements do you think will happen?' I think that's OK. I know one definite reason why a 'fly by wire' system won't be implemented on MOST horns: it's too expensive and too clunky. I accept that there are fundamental flaws in all instruments because all instruments have something you have to compromise with, like the clarinet overblowing a 12th, so you can't use the same fingerings for all the notes.
However, there have been experimental-type instruments to try to fix these issues, but. They were too expensive and/or too clunky.
Example: Jim Schmidt's beautiful saxophones and flutes. The other thing is that the standard instruments. Can be pretty good. In the 1930's, Leblanc made a 'perfect' saxophone, called the 'Rationale'. It had extra vents all over to compensate for intonation problems inherent in the design of the sax. The few folks that own these (and I'm not talking about the Lebanc System horns) can attest to their excellent intonation and tone, but the horns were very expensive to make and very expensive to maintain - and your tech needed a new service manual to work on 'em. A lot of people probably thought, 'Well, you know, that Selmer Balanced Action really isn't that bad.
It's got pretty decent intonation and it's a lot cheaper.' Leblanc only sold about 200 of these horns. I mentioned that mechanical assist for large instruments might be a good thing. One reason why is because these instruments are already extremely expensive. If your horn is already $20,000 (e.g.
Contrabass sax-range money), you're not going to mind an extra one or two thousand added to the price to ensure better intonation and/or easier to use keywork. THAT'S a bargain. Hey, I remember having to use all those false fingerings on bass sax to make it play in tune. I would have definitely paid 10% more to save me that frustration (if I owned the bass, that is). A final comment on using 'fly-by-wire': it's too slow if you use electric motors to close the keys. You'd probably use hydraulics. With respect to Clarinet, it is clear that most people have built up muscle memory towards the Boehm system, and that counts for something when one is looking to improve the instrument.
For it limits what people will tolerate in 'getting used to'. Customized barrels and bell fitted with vent/groove for bell note stability are very much accepted given the fact that they impact not the keywork. Add-ons and derivatives on the other hand. If new keys have to be put in and the keywork is altered, the system tend not to endure. We've seen Marchi and Mazzeo fade away while McIntyre eliminated for example. Even Bell E correction key that we see in Tosca and Steve Fox's work for example are a bit of a one-off, along with the register correction keys that are found in Schwenk & Seggelke as well as Fox horns. I think that extended range 'basset clarinet' to low C in various keys would also be in this category.