The iconic two-and-a-half octave clarinet glissando that opens George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue requires skilled clarinettists to combine unusual fingerings with even more unusual vocal tract configurations in order to achieve a nearly continuously rising pitch. To examine directly how the player’s vocal tract interacts with the clarinet when performing this glissando, we incorporated an acoustic impedance measurement head within a clarinet mouthpiece. Measurements of the player’s vocal tract impedance spectra obtained when performing the glissando are then compared with clarinet impedance spectra for the corresponding fingering used at that pitch. Partially uncovering an open finger-hole raises the resonance frequency of the downstream clarinet bore, thereby allowing the playing pitch to be raised smoothly. In the clarinet’s second register, however, upstream resonances in the clarinettist’s vocal tract are manipulated to be comparable in magnitude with those in the clarinet bore, influencing the sounding frequency of the reed. Thus, by skilfully adjusting their fingers and simultaneously coupling strong vocal tract resonances to the continuously changing pitch, experienced players can facilitate a smoothly rising pitch, especially across the final octave of the glissando.

Authors: Jer-Ming Chen, John Smith and Joe Wolfe

Event: SF08: Speed Papers

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