[Trombone-l] Acoustics of brass instruments

[sabutin]

Precisely.

S.

>--- Daniel Pliskin <daniel_pliskin at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>  A trombone IS a piece of high technology.  Manufacturers
>>  have been using the
>>  highest technology they could get their hands on since
>>  the beginning of
>>  manufacturing.  And so to bad-mouth technology and in the
>>  same sentence
>>  mention playing a trombone is ludicrous.  Just because
>>  you don’t see the
>>  technology, doesn’t mean it didn’t go into the very
>>  instruments you play.
>
>Dan, I hate to burst your bubble, but I know how the
>instruments Sam plays are made, and we don't use all of the
>technology you think we do.
>
>Sure, we have CNC lathes and mills for the machined parts,
>but the slide tubes are checked by eye and straightened by
>hand - and I challenge you or anybody else to find a
>manufacturer (even Yamaha) who makes consistently better
>slides than Shires.
>
>All soldering, everywhere on the instrument, is done
>freehand, without jigs or pre-set forms. Why? Because a
>skilled worker given the time to do it right will make a
>better solder joint, free of structural stress. That's more
>important to the way the instrument plays than 100%
>consistency of form.
>
>Shires bell stems are hand-hammered, and have brazed rather
>than plasma-welded seams, and the assembled bell is
>hand-spun by Steve Shires. Plasma welding is essentially
>invisible, and there is such a thing as a CNC bell spinner,
>but Steve's considered opinion, after playing and working
>on thousands of instruments, is that the older methods
>simply sound better and more interesting.
>
>The larger manufacturers know this too, which is why
>professional models from Yamaha are advertised as having
>hand-hammered bells.
>
>Steve Shires' guideline on automated technologies has
>always been to look and evaluate whatever is available. But
>automation and consistency is and always will be less
>important than the ultimate playing characteristics of the
>instruments, and if he wouldn't rather play the new horns
>that come out of the factory over the Elkhart 8H on the
>stand in his office, then something has gone awry.
>
>Gabe Langfur
>Boston, MA
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