A Conversation for Oboes

Saxophone is to the clarinet

Post 1

Güthwinë


Very nice article. The cor d'anglais is probably my single favorite woodwind voice. Got to love the mournful ones.

A rather pedantic note regarding the construction of musical instruments here: The saxophone is an unique instrument, due to its drastically tapered bore, which grows in diameter uniformly along the length of the instrument, whereas the clarinet is (I believe) the only intrument with a truly cylindrical bore. There are clarinets made out of metal that sound (more or less) like clarinets, and a wooden saxophone is concievable, although I don't know if one has ever been constructed. An instrument is defined by its design, its shape and structure. The material it is made out of has (relatively) small effect on the sound.


Güthwinë.


Saxophone is to the clarinet

Post 2

Gnomon - time to move on

There is such a thing as a wooden saxophone: it is called a tarogato and is a Hungarian national instrument. To me it sounds just like a saxophone.

You're right about the difference between saxophones and clarinets being the shape rather than the constructional material.

Elly put that comment in and I didn't change it because it was really talking about sarrusophones rather than about saxophones.


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