Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Yet another change to The Tuba Sound


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Posted by Rick Denney on July 16, 2001 at 15:48:16:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Yet another change to The Tuba Sound posted by Kenneth Sloan on July 16, 2001 at 14:54:35:

Yup. I read my other posts on this thread, and think, Sheesh! what a Luddite I've become. But it is true. Young scientists want to model before they know how to measure.

Here's the correct process:

1. Make a list of important qualities without regard to how they are measured. (Have we dont this yet? Only a few of them.)

2. Learn how to measure them. (I have merely dipped my toe, as a hobbyist, in those waters.)

3. Based on measurement data, look for relationships. (Hint: You have to have all the important factors measured first, and you don't always even know what they are.)

4. Create models to describe those relationships. (The overall model will be built up from separate models of specific relationships--each of which could be the subject of a dissertation.)

5. Test the models.

For a system as complex as a tuba, each of these steps could be someone's life's work. But the young 'uns what to go straight to Step 5 before they have even cleared the first step. Each step results in published papers and loads of peer review.

And I'm not even bringing up the difference between analytical and empirical approaches. That's a whole other can of worms.

My fear is that the only people interested in this process are tuba manufacturers and musicians, neither of which have the scientific training necessary to undertake the steps beyond the first one. There are exceptions, both among professionals and hobbyists, but nowhere near to the extent needed to cover this ground quickly or synergistically.

So, I think it's pretty hopeless to think we will be able to model this stuff realistically in our lifetimes, just because too few people are even motivated to think about it, let alone put together the resources to really make progress.

But we can improve out understanding by leaps and bounds, just by doing what measurement is easy and convenient. Once again, I ask: How many times to we hear the phrase "rich in fundamental"? We think we know what that means, but the qualities they are describing have nothing to do with the presence of fundamental. If my work and what others do to build on it strikes that phrase from the lexicon, we will be better off for it.

Rick "not really a Luddite" Denney




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