Posted by Jay Bertolet on August 17, 2001 at 15:29:13:
In Reply to: Vibration, damping, and weight posted by Rick Denney on August 17, 2001 at 11:26:02:
Very interesting post Rick!
Haven't there been attempts made over the years to construct instruments out materials ranging from cheese to lead to concrete? And hasn't the conclusions of those experiments generally been that you can't tell the difference in the sounds when these instruments are played behind a screen? I've come to believe that the material the horn is made out of matters far less than the specifics of the shape of construction. The effect desired from the modifications I made to my Cerveny 601 was to reflect lost sound energy back into the sound coming out the bell that was previously being lost through sympathetic vibration, mostly in the bell, 1st, and 2nd branch. While I don't have the technical background to prove it, I'm guessing that this is the most obvious place for loss because of the larger diameter of those tubes.
I have to say that I am not at all ready to start experimenting with the deadening of certain resonant frequencies of a tuba in an attempt to alter the overall resonance of a given instrument. I'll need to understand a lot more than I currently do to reach that point.
My opinion for what it's worth...