Posted by Brian Frederiksen on August 21, 2001 at 17:35:12:
In Reply to: Sound Level Meter posted by Scott on August 20, 2001 at 17:04:15:
First off, all a decibel meter does is give a reading of how many decibels of sound it is receiving from it's microphone. On the old Radio Shack meter there is a dial for the tenths and the meter shows digits.
Everyone caught the most common use of the decibel meter is for use with dynamics. It can be used to show someone that their idea of FFF is only 40 db - hardly the 90+ db we would expect. On the other end of the scale, if there idea of PPP is in the 80's, it's time to tone it down.
It is common that a player is not generating much sound and once in a masterclass, Mr Jacobs encountered one such student. If there is little sound, usually there is little buzz at the lips. He took the student and put him on a mouthpiece rim and measured the sound level. It was very low, partially because he was not feeding enough air to the lips but also by removing the amplification of the horn, the level went way down. Anyway he had the student play Pop goes the Weasel, then he did it himself asking for imitation. When it was somewhat like he wanted he challanged the student to do it 5 db louder. After a quick breathing excercise, another 5 db higher. He did this maybe 4-5 times until the student was at a level that was close to his own. Then he got the student back on the horn where he progressed deafen everyone. This was common to his teachings, he would remove them from the instrument where habits were formed and worked them and returned to the instrument.