heather roche

9 multiphonics that overblow from the second harmonic

Posted on December 16, 2019 by heatherroche

If you’ve spent a bit of time on this blog you probably will have come to notice that multiphonics always involve a fundamental pitch — which is always the lowest pitch — plus 2-4 other pitch options, which are generally overblown from said fundamental and can be isolated more easily than they are played together. I think this was made particularly obvious by my recent post, a second look at Philip Reyfeldt’s chart.

However, recently, Scott McLaughlin and I found nine unique multiphonics. These multiphonics have a fundamental that hovers around a D#, plus a pitch in the second register (near the F). But, if you overblow to the multiphonic in the altissimo register, this pitch combines with the “F” in the second register, NOT the lowest fundamental. I could only find nine multiphonics that do this.

Untitled

Quite a few of them use the low G# key. Strangely, using the same fingering but replacing the G# with either the F, F# or E keys almost always did not produce similar multiphonics, they all consistently overblow from the low fundamental.

They are quite difficult, especially the second overblow. It’s really hard to balance the sound (as you’ll hear in the examples), but I actually really like this fragile quality. It’s necessary to play them at very quiet dynamics. I’d say piano for the lower dyad and piannissimo for the top.

So I hope you enjoy these nine fascinating multiphonics as much as we do!

(Apologies, I didn’t have my Zoom with me, so these are just recorded on my laptop – but I think you get the idea…)

Pitches	Fingering	Sound

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Plastic tube scordatura

Posted on November 10, 2019 by heatherroche

As you may have gleaned from recent posts, I’m part of an AHRC-funded research project at the University of Leeds this year with Scott McLaughlin, called the Garden of Forking Paths. Scott and I have been toying with the idea of playing with different barrel lengths, to see what kind of multiphonics might come out of it – this month we’ve been experimenting with a kind of “budget” version, using a bit of plastic tubing (an idea I had from working with William Kuo, who is a big fan of a bit of plastic tubing).

So, by extending the clarinet at the top, the proportions of the instrument are warped, and so the resulting scale isn’t simply transposed down, but stretched out. I made the tube as long as possible without losing use of the register key, but reaching into the altissimo is so-far impossible (maybe this would improve with practice? do I want to spend the time trying to find out? I don’t know?).

But the multiphonics are fantastic. I think so, anyway. They are brash and complex, and you can adjust the beating in a lot of them by moving the “barrel” around.

I wonder if this would be a really effective way to write microtones for less experienced clarinet players? Because learning the quarter tone fingerings is very time consuming, especially if you’re not going to make playing new music a daily thing.

I’d just like to know what you think! Is this something you could imagine using?

So the pipe that I use is 18mm in diameter and 16cm in length – and is inserted in place of the barrel, as shown:

All of the pitches are transposed into Bb here – the first line is the fingered pitch, and the second the resulting pitches. You’ll need to show both lines in your score when you write with this.

chromaticscale

And it sounds like this:

Or alternatively, a bit of silliness with it on Instagram:

View this post on Instagram

The limits of clarinet scordatura pt 1 #mozartinthejungle

A post shared by heather_roche (@heather_roche) on Oct 16, 2019 at 6:18am PDT

And then I have 10 good multiphonics for you. There are definitely more, I could probably spend a few happy hours coming up with another 30-50, but these were some of my favourites. Hope you enjoy them!

#	Pitches	Fingering	Audio
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Underblown Bb Clarinet Multiphonics

Posted on November 5, 2019 by heatherroche

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This post is closely related to the post on using the register key, the post on bass clarinet underblown multiphonics and also to the post on Eb clarinet underblown multiphonics. It might be worth reading those, as well as the posts on spectral multiphonics for Bb, bass and contrabass clarinets, and Bb and Bass dyads to have a complete overview of this aspect of clarinet playing. (Basically read all the posts about multiphonics? There are quite a few more…)

If you’re looking for a nice example of a piece that uses these (plus a rather wide range of dyad multiphonics), check out Martin Rane Bauck’s Kopenhagener Stille. The section where he makes exclusive use of these multiphonics starts at 8:18 (but the whole piece is terrific!).

As usual these are in written (transposed) pitches. The fingering for each multiphonic in the first two sets is actually the same as the fingering for the top note, so you can notate these by just writing u.b. or underblow. If you’re worried about confusing the clarinetist, include a link to this page in your legend.

As with the Eb and bass clarinet equivalents of this technique, these are best performed at quiet dynamics.

firstset

The last few here are a bit theoretical most of the time, but you can hear the low note, just (you might need headphones.

Going upwards from the C sharp, the multiphonics are quite fragile, and a bit louder, but very effective:

altissimo

There is also quite a wide range of alternative fingerings for these, should a) something not really work very well or b) you be looking for a slightly different colour. These may well be some of my favourites, actually…

bonus multiphonics

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Dyad Multiphonics for Bb Clarinet Part II – a second look at Philip Rehfeldt’s chart

Posted on September 24, 2019 by heatherroche

When Philip Rehfeldt wrote his seminal New Directions for Clarinet in 1976, he included a number of multiphonic charts for both Bb and Bass clarinets. These charts aren’t bad, although quite regularly I don’t get the same pitches he does, and I always found his categorisation system a little odd. (The bass clarinet multiphonics in these charts are actually more problematic, and I wouldn’t advise using them!)

Recently, as part of the AHRC-funded project, The Garden of Forking Paths, which I’m consulting on for the next 15 months, Scott McLaughlin and I decided to spend a few hours trying to see if we could reorganise Rehfeldt’s Bb clarinet multiphonics in a way that made more sense for us. Instead of his six categories (which are based on a mix of dynamic possibilities and function, which I found inconsistent), we came up with four, which accurately describe the function of each multiphonic. (He wrote a nice blogpost that sums up our first session, which you can check out here if you’re interested!)

I wanted to show you the 29 multiphonics from his chart (many of which have appeared on this blog before) that we put in the category of “dyad multiphonics with spectral aspects”. I’ll talk about our three other categories in future blog posts.

I think one of the things I’ve struggled with is talking about multiphonics that have multiple attributes: but they all do. And the colour of the multiphonic, depending on which pitch is highlighted by the player, can change a lot. All of these multiphonics create “close” dyads (within a 10th) and also have further spectral possibilities, which you can move between. Rehfeldt struggled with this too: he writes that once you’ve achieved an embouchure position for a multiphonic, you don’t move. But I disagree. Being flexible about which pitches you can bring out allows for a lot more possibilities – and practising these gives the player a lot of control.

A lot of the same multiphonics appear in my post on dyad multiphonics for Bb clarinet. This is very much an extension of that post, but if you’re interested in writing these sounds, I definitely suggest using both!

A lot of these multiphonics are quite difficult, and do require the clarinetist has some prior experience with multiphonics. None of them are on my Easy Multiphonics post, so do be aware of that if you’re writing for inexperienced players.

Within the pitch charts, please don’t forget that the bottom pitch (fundamental) will remain, and then you can choose between the upper pitches, they don’t sound all at once, these are not complex multiphonics. Choose the upper pitch that you want for each instance of that multiphonic, you can not have them all at once.

In the audio files, I’ve tried to show how easy it is (or not) to make each one sound as a chord, and also to show how you can move between them. I’ve also actually organised the multiphonics by pitch, for the first time ever, thanks to Scott having cut out all of Rehfeldt’s multiphonics for me to play with, Top Trumps style:

Pitches	Fingering	Sound	Notes?






			This one is really rather fragile in the high register (have a listen to the recording)
			Stubborn in the low register and fragile up high – use with caution.








			Debatable whether this is really a dyad or whether I’m doing an “ultra-underblow” – which I’ll discuss in a future post!






			Quite stubborn
			Can get quite a strong loud one with the A (listen to the recording)
			Can be difficult to place. When I hit the Bb, you’ll also hear an E above that, this seems to just emerge as part of the spectrum, I’m not controlling it! (But can’t get rid of it either.)
			VERY stubborn dyad with the E.

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Emergent Bb Clarinet Multiphonics: Part 1 – Overblowing

Posted on September 6, 2019 by heatherroche

I think it’s useful, if you’re a composer, to make use of the fragile qualities of multiphonics. Some of them don’t that well as chords that sound together, but as a composer you can take advantage of this, and make use of these emergent multiphonics. This simultaneously has the added bonus of making your clarinetist look like they know what they’re doing: one pitch gracefully becomes two or three, rather than a chaotic huffing-and-puffing desperation to have the two pitches sound together.

I wanted to come up with a nice list of some multiphonics that do this effectively, and to find ones that start on as many pitches as possible. I’m going to ignore pitches below B3 (because you need to use spectral multiphonics for those, that’s your only option) and this first part covers the pitches up to and including B4. This list will by no means be conclusive, the vast majority of multiphonics have some ability to do this, it’s really just a sample. I’ve also tried to pick ones that do this quite easily, but if you’re just looking for easy multiphonics, check this out.

A few things: the starting pitch can be held as long as is reasonable for breathing, but I’ve only held them for a second or so in the recordings. The top notes can be quite fragile – the higher the top note, the more fragile it tends to be. Listen to the recordings: they should make the colour of the sound obvious.

Some of these multiphonic fingerings can produce multiple second pitches, so I’ve included them wherever possible. Recordings should add further clarity.

This post is a kind of extended variation of stuff I wrote about for The Sampler a few years ago.

As usual these are written pitches, not sounding! And I recommend a pair of headphones, or the bottom pitches, particularly in the lower registers, can be difficult to hear.