(07-22-2019, 12:26 AM)Mattias Westlund Wrote:(07-20-2019, 02:46 PM)Terry93D Wrote: One orchestration trick I read a while ago was: never write octaves for your clarinet! Even if they play the fundamentals in tune, the way overtones and partials stack with clarinets mean that octaves sound out-of-tune.
Sorry, I must have missed this comment.
So, um, what about bass clarinet then? It's not an instrument I use overly much personally, but thinking back to various movie scores I have a strong notion that it's commonly used for octave-doubling much as contrabasses will double the cellos. Then again, maybe you're referring to octaves in regular Bb clarinets.
If utilizing two bass clarinets playing in octaves with each other without any other instruments is what you're referring to, then I am happy to stand corrected. But I suspect I simply wasn't clear: two clarinets, playing in octaves, as a largely exposed unison.
From Robin Hoffman's Daily Film Scoring Bits:
Quote:2. Avoid doubling Clarinets in octaves. Due to the construction of the Clarinet, it is unable to produce even numbered harmonics in its sound. So the first harmonic over the fundamental tone is not (as expected) the octave but the octave+5th. This makes a lot of what defines the typically transparent sound of a Clarinet. The higher harmonics are not as stable and generally “where they should be” as one would expect so doubling Clarinets in octaves (which would mean to fill up the missing harmonics) creates very often a problematic tuning impression, even though the fundamental notes are intonated properly.
I sure do hope someone doesn't pop up and correct both me and this professional film composer 'cause that makes him look foolish because he's a professional and makes me look foolish for listening to a profauxsional!
