Posted by Rick Denney on July 12, 2001 at 11:12:05:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Yet another change to The Tuba Sound posted by Gerald J. on July 11, 2001 at 22:26:01:
Outdoors is wonderful for eliminating reflections from the tuba, but the ambient noise levels are quite high in the outdoors that would be convenient to me.
To answer Matt's question: The microphone was six feet up and six feet in front of the tuba. The room is L-shaped, and the rectangle I was in is about 25 x 12. It's a typical unfinished basement with insulation on the walls and a rug on the floor, and a lot of stored furniture and stuff everywhere. To my ears, there is very little echo and only a bit of reverberation. But who knows at what frequencies those reverberations occur, and that is certainly going to affect those spectra.
There is a lot to consider here, however. If we follow Gerald's advice and divorce the tuba from the room effects (or if we use a system with a mouthpiece pickup), we may get a clear picture of the horn itself. But I'm not sure how interesting that is to me. One of the things I learned from my teachers is that there must be enough content, whatever that includes, in the sound so that it will find its way to the far corner of the hall. The great players have tailored their sound with the room in mind. That's why "projection" is a concept that is given high regard, as opposed to mere "loudness." I know many players who have a beautiful sound up close, but you can't hear them in an ensemble. And I know other players who are no better up close, but their sound is everpresent in the large ensemble. Matt's suggestion of sampling at various locations to quantify this effect is probably the best way to go.
I feel like I've tipped a small rock at the top of a talus slope, and as it rolls down the hill, in picks up more and more fellow travellers until the whole hillside is moving. There are so many directions this could go, and all interest me. But I can't pursue them all. I'm just trying to understand a couple of basic points, points that seem to me poorly understood (or described) by tuba players.
One thing this has illustrated to me: What little science has been done on tuba sounds has not been dessiminated widely. Otherwise, everyone's response would be, "Rick, it's interesting, but really it was all done in the first chapter of ______." And another thing too: Amateurs are as interested in the science of what they do as pros and academics, and maybe moreso in some cases.
So, where does this go? I've described my results, and many have had an "Aha!" response to my bits of data, thus prompting their own more sophisticated questions.
But I've also described my test methods, and it's within the grasp of most everyone, it seems to me. So, my hope is that, while I pursue those leads that interest me specifically (in my own time), others will take my starting point and go from there. Surely we will be able to draw better conclusions when the sample are made by a superb player, and the instruments being compared more archetypal representatives of their respective concepts (e.g. a real 6/4 York or one of its clones and, say, an Alexander).
Of course, most folks will say, "Who cares? I just want to play music..." and who can argue with that?
Rick "pointing the way, hopefully in the right direction" Denney