[Trombone-l] Acoustics of brass instruments

[sabutin]

Hi all...

Model your sound with your ears.

Much better than a machine.

Seriously.

Learn to hear overtones in sounds.

Every sound is a chord.

Every note you play is a chord.

When you play long tones...LISTEN!!!

Find the overtones.

Try to isolate them a little.

When I play long tones with this in mind, here is what I do. (Depending on how your ears are set up, this generally works better in the registers below middle F. As you get higher, the overtones go out of your hearing range.)

Play each long tone three or four times. The first few times, look for the overtones and experiment with isolating them. HOW do you isolate them? Fuggedaboudit. Just do it and eventually you will SEE how you are doing it. Feel it. (Some combination of air cavity/tongue/lip manipulation, of course.) Then play the last long tone and try to make all of the ones you managed to isolate (or at least identify) sound.

Can't hear 'em? You've been too well trained by society. They're up there.

Two ways to predict them so that you CAN hear them, and one way to test for them.

#1-Just play them on a keyboard instrument. You KNOW what hey are, right? Same proportions as the overtone series above pedal Bb. Octave, P5th, P4th, Maj 3rd, min 3rd, funny min 3rd, funny Maj 2nd, maj 2nd, etc. on up.

The easiest ones to hear and isolate are usually the 5th, 6th and 7th partials. That is, the 2 octaves plus a Maj. 3rd, P 5th and min 7th above the note being played. Play them on a piano, get them in your ear, and then try to hear and isolate them above whatever note you are playing.

#2-Learn to isolate them with your voice. This is the best way, because it is physical and organic. You FEEL them.

(From a post I made recently on this subject at the Online Trombone Journal. (http://forum.trombone.org/viewtopic.php?p=342801&highlight=sing&sid=08affc3d1e6d1232ae8092424f2f4402#342801)

====================================

Learn how to isolate the harmonics of your own voice. It is dead easy.

Choose a note that you can sing easily and strongly. Sing it with your mouth closed ..."Mmmmmmmmm"...and then very gradually and slowly open your mouth through the vowel sounds.

"Mmmmmmmmuuuuuuooooooaaaaaaiiiiieeeeee"

And listen. The harmonic series will come popping out above the root.

JUST like on the trombone. Octave (hard to hear, but it's there) , perfect 5th, double octave, maj. 3rd. perfect 5th, min. 7th (Flat, too. Just like on the horn) triple octave, maj. 2nd, maj. 3rd (Also a little flat), strange 4th, perfect 5th, etc.

Right on up to the 16th partial quadruple octave. And above.

This is just the "OM" ("Aum", "Aaaaaauuuummm") of the cartoon yogis in real life practice.

Once you can do that...practice it for a while.

---snip---

Trombone playing just got simpler.

In a complex sort of way.

Later...

S.

P.S. I studied with a man named David Hykes to learn vocal technique I sketched out above. Here is the website of his group.

http://www.harmonicworld.com/

Check him out.

Interesting stuff, to say the least.

The REAL "theory" of music.

==========================

#3-How to test for them?

On a good, well tuned piano (to which YOU are well tuned), simply depress the sustain pedal and play a note on the trombone at about mf or louder. All of the overtones will come popping out of the piano once you stop your note. This is also another way to learn how to hear them.

Y'all know about the concept of formants, do you not?

Every sound emphasizes and depresses certain overtones. Thus the sound of a french horn playing a middle C is different than that or a trombone, a trumpet, a violin etc. playing the same note. These formants also change as the dynamic level changes, and they are RADICALLY different at the moment of attack.

The same holds true from trombone to trombone, from m'pce to m'pce, from player to player, etc. Now you cannot be truly conscious of what is going on above your sound to any great degree while making music...hard enough to play, let alone survey the stratosphere above the notes that you are playing...but you CAN custom-design your own basic sound. That is what most equipment search is really all about, and that is what we do when we "try to get a better sound." That is also what we do when we "color" our sound. 

So...design your own sound al least SEMI-consciously. 10, 15, 20 minutes a day doing this can produce amazing results.

Try it.

You be bettah off.

And...

Have fun.

Later...

S.