Derek Reaban

Ed,

There was a recent flurry of posts on this topic at the other site. I thought I would bring two posts over here, just to keep this current and catch anyone who might not frequent both sites.

I think it’s interesting that the response to the poll that accompanies this thread it EXACTLY opposite between the two sites:

The louder you play, the less it carries!

TH RESULTS (as of December 13, 2006)
True......34%.....[ 29 ]
False.....65%.....[ 54 ]

Total Votes : 83


TM RESULTS (as of December 13, 2006)
True......23.......65.71%
False......12......34.29%
Voters: 35.

Derek Reaban

Thanks for the comments everyone. When I saw the picture that I posted yesterday, it differed significantly from the recorded examples that I had analyzed. That 7th overtone (harmonic) was much larger than I was expecting to see. I was also confused when there was no scale associated with the vertical axis. I’m not sure what they’re showing (I had assumed decibels).



Anyway, my point with this experiment in the first place was to provide a starting point for a player to “see” their sound, and get a feel for how “resonant” it is. Resonant in this case would be rich in overtones. Based on my original experiment, I think an “ideal” sound would be close to what is shown in the chart below (Player A). I have shown 10 overtones, and the fundamental (note being played) is in the first position on the left for 3 players of different abilities. (Click on the picture to see a bigger, clearer view!)



If you took a snapshot of a top-flight symphony player, their “sonic signature” would look like Player A for every note that they played. Many of us would fall into the Player B picture, and have vibrant, resonant sounds for many notes, slipping in various degrees between Player A and Player C depending on the music being played. Player C represents a beginning student (lots of fundamental, very little energy in the higher harmonics).

Player A simply has more “energy” in their sound. Look at the area under the curve! There’s just MUCH MORE trumpet signal to be heard. And when these overtones have a good deal of energy in the 2000-4000 Hz range, human hearing really picks up on them at a distance. I’ve shown the 4th overtone (right in that 2-4K range) as being as strong as the fundamental for Player A (3 dB), much less for Player B (-30 dB) but still able to carry fairly well at a distance, and non-existent for Player C (-60 dB).

This is what I think this Sound Experiment should show. If a student would go through this experiment and find that they want to have a vibrant sound like Player A, but are really more between Player B and Player C then they would hopefully be much more receptive to suggestions from their instructor on reducing harmful tension in their playing, or understand that overblowing (masked as their idea of “more air”) will never get them to their desired “ideal” sound goal.

Derek Reaban

I should have done this when I first presented this data, but I hadn’t thought about it enough to see the patterns yet, and simply wanted to get the results of my small experiment summarized so that I could visualize what was going on.

Here’s the original analysis of “High C” (just above the staff) in Table form from my Excel spreadsheet. Clearly this is difficult to read, and I’m probably the only one that can look at it quickly and see what the data is saying. I must point out that at the microphone that was in line with our ears, my decibel reading was louder than Benny’s (8.89 versus 7.00 OR 12.32 versus 11.15 – i.e. two ranges shown because the High C was between the indications on the scale that was provided in Audacity).




Now, here is the data presented “side-by-side” for the High C at the Far Microphone (i.e. across the room – “In the Hall”):



That still may be a little hard for some people to read (click on the pictures with the red boxes around them, and you can see a larger / clearer image), but my fundamental and overtones are represented by the blue bars and Benny’s are represented by the burgundy bars. Clearly, he has more energy in all of his overtones, whereas my fundamental is stronger. Hmmm….


Now, this is what I really want to try and show. I have separated my data from Benny’s, showing my fundamental and overtones alone. I have also penciled in a “general” curve to represent the shape of my “sonic signature” on a High C.



When you look at Benny’s fundamental and overtones, his “general” curve shows a very different “sonic signature”. That characteristic hump in the first 3 or 4 bars is what seems to distinguish a sound with real carrying power from one that simply doesn’t get out into the hall as well.




I’m betting that my sound will have this characteristic hump up to around a G at the top of the staff. At that point, incremental harmful tension starts to dampen my higher overtones. I’ve made some wholesale changes in my playing since this experiment, and I can clearly hear that my own “hump” carries a little higher in my range than it used to.

If a player was to use this visual cue occasionally during long tone practice to assure that they don’t venture into the wrong shape, they would be not only “strengthening” their chops, they would be coordinating the entire playing system in a more balanced way. They would be spending time in their “real” playing range and eventually, with persistence, they would carry this more vibrant and resonant “hump” shape well above the staff.

Hope this makes my discussion of the data a little clearer.

rowuk

In fact, the trumpet with its approx 5" bell is very directional for the highest overtones.
Loudness is a perceived unit of measure and it is very difficult to objectively define it. Fletcher/Munson is a good start and may even help here-more on that later.
When we try to play above a certain pressure (different for each horn and player), the fundamental tones become masked by distorted overtones, increasing the pressure does not increase acoustic output, but changes the relation and nature of the overtones to the fundamental tone being produced. This effect can be observed with any measurement of distortion in audio horn loudspeakers. At a particular output level, distortion increases very rapidly. This is not just a function of the horn, but also the interaction of the horn and the driver(or our lips). The reflections in the horn change the pressure that the driver or lips "see" and this pressure is not linear throughout the frequency range.
To keep this simple, playing in the optimum pressure range that our lips/mouthpiece/trumpet can handle, gives us the most resonant sound. If our embouchure is not strong enough to support the pressures developed in the instrument, the lip movement becomes distorted and the effect multiplies.
Distortion increases the high frequency output and if we look at the Fletcher/Munson curves, our ears are less sensitive to high frequencies - we think that we are not playing as loudly. Once that "distortion level" has been reached, the lips are no longer in control and the tone quality suffers. The best players have the best "control" of the driver (the lips) and can keep the distortion acceptably low at even greater pressures.

Eclipsehornplayer

All I can say is Wow!

Derek you really do have a lot of time on your hands don't you?

Good stuff though.... Thanks for a most enlightening thread.

ecarroll

KHP.

Derek's an addict. . . aren't we all to some degree?

Happy holidays,
EC

Derek Reaban

Ed,

Here is a concept for where this idea could go...

This is about as far as I think I can go with the “game” concept. It would take someone with real programming skills to make this happen, but here is my idea on “paper”.

Based on the many albums / CDs that have been made of Pictures at an Exhibition, a “baseline” could be selected of your favorite player from a professional recording. This would form the template that would be used in this game.

You would be given a tuning chord to align your instrument with the baseline recording. Then you would receive the count off and play the first 13 notes of the Promenade into your microphone. When you were finished you would receive the following graph of your playing compared to the professional player. I superimposed the “Superman Returns” camera just for fun!

Look at the connection between notes for the professional player and how great the time is (the red line begins exactly at the left side and goes all the way to the right side - rhythmic integrity). Intonation is almost perfect on every note (the horizontal line in the middle of each frame is ideal), and the “sonic signature” that we have been discussing in this topic would be the characteristic graph with the hump around the 2nd to 4th overtones (the ideal shape).



For the student’s recording, I showed a rendition that is quite marcato with separation between notes. In this way the student doesn’t get full credit for note duration in the score. Rhythmic Integrity is quite good overall, except for the early change on the slurs up the F. The intonation of the Ds is quite low, and the overall “sonic signature” of the note, while good, is not the same vibrant, ringing, resonant sound of the professional player.

Here’s an idea of how each individual “frame” might be scored. Duration and Intonation would be easy (i.e. be in the box on the horizontal line). Quality would need to be determined based on the shape of the curve. Maybe the area under the curve would be a good measure (higher scores are only possible when the 2nd and 4th overtones are stronger in magnitude than the fundamental – i.e. setting up more area under the curve).



Based on this printout from the recording, the student could easily see how to fix the intonation (which notes are particularly bad) and focus on lengthening the note values to make it sound much closer to the pros recording.

The power in this game would be quantifying the quality of the note. After playing this game, the way to target improvement would be through dedicated lone tone practice working from the best sound in your middle register and working both up and down in register without forcing in any way. This practice technique would allow the student to score much better on this game and scores could be saved (say every six months) to show progress.

This could be set up on the ITG web site, and everyone could play! If you wanted, you could submit your score, and look at the high score for the day, and highest score of all time. Now that would be fun!

k0elw

Very nice work Derek, I recall seeing this a while back; but
just now noticed that "audacity" which I've used for years has a
sprectrum analyzer. Whoa! or is it Duh!?

It is refreshing to see objective work with measurements, actual numbers, and graphs, rather than the usual subjective claims and mystical reflections.

Bravo!

-Ellis

Derek Reaban

Hey Ellis! Nice to see you on TM!

I really think that this could be a fun game, and excellent tool to help students get a better picture of what they sound like so that they can turn their ears on and be that much more discriminating in the sounds that are coming out their bells.

Hope all is going well for you!

P.S. Nice Avatar!!!

rowuk

What happens to your rating if you are Patrick Hession and not Adolph Herseth? Are we being politically incorrect to our ultrasonic brethren?