Funny that as a longtime clarinetist I failed to notice the wooden-ness of the sound of the instrument until recently hearing a master clarinettist David Krakauer. I wondered, is the clarinet a woodwind by virtue of sound initiated by the vibration of a wooden reed? Probably not, as the flute and recorders have no reeds. Then is it because woodwinds are made of wood?  This is closer to the truth though saxophones are made of brass and many woodwinds are made of materials other than wood.  Modern woodwinds descend from prototype wooden ones. The reeded saxophone is a later invention based on the clarinet. As for the reed, that is cellulose from a grass not wood.

The clarinet in its low register, can occasionally have a distinctly wooden sound. The walls of the wooden tube are made to vibrate with the column of air inside. Dominant frequencies we hear as composites of notes, differentiate by closing the holes in the tube. Sound initiates by the opening and closing of the reed on the mouthpiece yielding rhythmic compression and rarefaction of air. The resonant frequencies of the clarinet must be closest to the lowest register the lowest notes are designated as chalumeau register from which the clarinet gets its name ( a word which btw does mean reed.) The upper registers are overtones. You can’t fail to notice the majority of instruments in the orchestra are also made of wood. String instruments initiate sounds by vibrating strings, but it’s the vibrating wood the gives each instrument character. That is why all that effort goes perfecting wood in making a Stradivarius.  This must be true of the piano frame itself and even its case of wood which is a material that can be made to resonate extensively in audible frequency ranges. Many percussion instruments are wooden or wood derived, which goes to show that you can make sound simply by vibrating air as we all know but the character of sound comes mostly from whatever else it may be caused to vibrate, along with the column of air. Early humans noted the resonant properties of wood and made all manner sounds with it.

It is not the first perturbation of air that gives meaning to sound. The condensing/rarefacting air column in a clarinet and vibrating sting on a violin are meaningless unless they set something else in motion.  All of this got me to thinking that the effect of music is much more about resonances than whatever original vibration the player or singer of music creates. In fact, when you consider it, those first vibrations, induce a veritable chain of being of later vibrations. The musical sound enters the ear if it is to have any meaning. Our ear is set up with a basilar membrane in the cochlea which is neat little object as tiny parts are sequentially resonant for single frequencies and little hair cells have cilia which alter their electrical potential based on movement of the tiny part of the basilar membrane in contact with that particular cell. Because the cells are lined up to respond to particular tones, depending on location along this membrane they are tonotopic. This is much the same as sight neurons in the visual cortex may respond to one area of the visual field, and somatotopic cells are grouped over the sensory cortex to respond to specific areas on our own body. In that way the brain inside all of us is a direct reflection of what is outside.  In the case of our musical instruments each tone has its own place which is conserved through the complex auditory pathway that runs up into the nervous system from the auditory nerve, onward through various waypoints, all the way up to the cortex of the brain. Each new neuron, hands off the auditory signal to the next in line and it turns out the auditory pathway has many synapses, relay points, each step no doubt is meant to provide further computation of the signal to aid interpretation.

Resonances do not stop at the cerebral cortex. The cortex interprets tonal combinations, patterns of tone in time called melody, patterns of simultaneous tones, chords and harmony, changing rhythmic patterns, unique combinations of timbre, sonority characterizing a musical presentation.  An exact account of the number of stages of reverberations needed before the cerebral cortex finally interprets complex musical sound, may be incalculable, but the cortex is still another reverberant waystation.  As we all know for the best music, the cortical interpretation reverberates back and forth with the limbic emotional neurons beneath it.  And all of this is just on the receptive or afferent side.  Musical sound recruits motor cells,  which causes you to want to move if not to dance. In some cases you will need to try hard to inhibit your drive to move as in the comfortable seat of a concert hall, even while imagining yourself conducting the orchestra. The very best music literally moves us, emotions and muscles and sinews, body and soul.  It commandeers vast tracts of brain in a great chain of resonance.  Sensory, motor, emotional neurons are made to participate, driving muscles,  arms and legs, rapt in musical monomania. Music spreads person to person, as when whole tribes dance and sing together.  Musical resonances don’t stop even there and may never stop reverberating in time. Often as we will want to hear something again and again. The frenzy will eventually have to end, when familiarity leads to boredom. We forget and go onto something else for a while but may still want to come back if we haven’t heard something after a long break. Great music will move others long after we are gone. I’m amazed at how often I am moved by recordings where not only the  composer but all the great performers,  are long gone. Life after death.

Shiva dancing