Alex Yates

Maybe it is as simple as this.... all of the different parts welded together creating the instrument become "one" after time, and THAT is when the comfy feeling locks in.

'Tis worth a ponder......

Mikey

And...........the player becomes "one" with her/his instrument.

Vulgano Brother

We're getting into some pretty heavy voodoo in this thread, and we might want to check out or into quantum physics. This will do for starters:

Quantum Consciousness

The question becomes one of "does freezing/annealing/playing a trumpet do anything to the trumpet at Planck Scale 5 or below, where all kinds of weird quantum stuff really kicks in and anything is possible?"

The official Vulgano position is "Maybe."

It would seem that annealing and playing would be more likely to have long term effects, because energy gets added. But in the tiny world of Planck 5 and below, the rules don't apply.

It is known that some German Blechblasinstrumentenmachermeisters have heated their instruments to 200 degrees Celcius to "relax" the brass.

I do know that the more I practice, the better I get -- or is it just the horn that's getting better?

Dunno.

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Pedal C

[quote=gzent;297041The problem, physics tells me that it takes a heck of a lot more acoustic energy to noticeably change a soldered brass tube than a human is able to generate.

Greg[/QUOTE]

I've always found both the subjects of the thread interesting, but a little questionable. I'm curious though, how much energy DOES it take to alter an instrument and how much CAN a person produce?

I don't mean to sound confrontational, just wondering.

Jason.

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gzent

Great question Jason.

It takes me back to a "Mythbusters" episode where they were trying to crack the windows in a car that had a monster car stereo. Of course, no existing equipment would crack the windows, not even close.

So they rigged up a giant 3 -4 foot woofer and attached a mechanical oscillator and sealed up the doors and windows air tight. That wouldn't crack a window either.

I've seen them do various experiments with extremely high sound pressure levels, we're talking 150db or more, the kind of pressure that if you're not wearing ear protection you shatter eardrums. They showed over and over again how difficult it is to shake/break various structures apart with acoustic energy.

My take - if the common student tortures of mashing sticky valves up and down (as opposed to regular cleaning and oiling), jamming mutes in the bell with a missing cork, throwing a stack of instruments in the back of a bus bouncing along for a few hours - if none of those things result in frequent solder breakage then playing the horn sure won't change a solder joint..IMO!

Greg

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I think you missed the point of the last post.

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tpter1

This is a fascinating discussion.

I think maybe the vibration caused by playing in a resonant manner does open up and loosen the horn. Vibration loosens things. When the horn "loosens", we feel it break in, as I think Alex and Manny are alluding to. Any stresses from the building process are relieved, at least. That just seems to make sense.

Forcing this process is not, in my opinion, a good idea.

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Pedal C

Hey Greg...

Thanks for responding. That's an interesting analogy with the show (I've seen that one too). I would never think that a person could pop the braces off an instrument just by playing it, and I don't think that's what anyone is saying! Even shattering glass is done by matching a resonant frequency in the glass (or something to that effect, my old roommate was the physicst, not me!) not by simple volume. I've always taken the idea that a player changes a horn to mean that by playing it frequently, in tune, with a resonant sound in all registers, this will, over time, cause the instrument to respond differently than it did before. Now, I have NO IDEA if this works, but I guess my questions about it would be:

1 - Can the act of making a sound with a brass tube ever alter the brass, even at a very minute (molecular?) level?

2 - If yes, how much energy would it take?

3 - Can a person do this, even over time?

The only reason I ask is the you seem to know more about the physics of such things that I do, so maybe you had some insight.

As a side note, I once heard of a repairman who offered "harmonic allignment" or some such thing and one of his customers was very upset when he discoverd that the "procedure" consisted of the horn sitting on a metal tray next to a running electic razor.

Jason.

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Vulgano Brother

Just to add to the mystery, Denis Wick reported having a student complain of a new horn where a couple of high notes didn't speak well. Denis played these notes a few times, and afterwards the student claimed they were easier. (Anyone know tab notation for the Twilight Zone theme?)

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PH

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