"The louder you play, the less it carries! In my opinion, the quality that carries is the amplification of the dolce tone." Marcel Tabuteau - The Philadephia Orchestra
Ed,
Based on the recent topic about
Visualizing Resonance I have been very intrigued about the possibility of mapping the sound benefits of playing with a "more complex", colorful, vibrant sound. The ability of a vibrant sound to carry easily to the back of the hall is something that not everyone has experienced (this is targeted more at high school / college students and probably many comeback players). And if they have experienced it in a concert situation, they probably haven't had the chance to sit beside the player to understand what this "powerful" sound from the hall sounds like from behind the bell.
I made a sketch of a proposed experiment to give those players who are skeptical of a sound that "projects", something more tangible to "measure" on their own for comparison purposes. I’m writing this, not only because I’m curious about this myself, but also because of a player on the TPIN list that literally hasn’t experienced a truly resonant sound, and is skeptical that different types of sound project better than others.
I know that occasionally I’ve been to a carnival or some type of outdoor event where a pitching booth is set up with a radar gun up and running. It’s always fun to spend a buck and see what how fast my fastball is compared to the pros. They’re throwing 95 MPH and I’m lucky to hit 70 MPH!
In that same spirit of adventure, I think something like that would be really fun to have at future ITG events. Here is a sketch of my experiment (maybe this has already been done somewhere and I can simply find a copy):
I think I’ve got the general impressions right in my drawing: a more colorful sound (i.e. one with more harmonic activity in the higher overtones) will carry more easily than a “loud” sound that has less harmonic content.
In the ITG “pitching booth”, a player would start with a second line G, followed by a lip slur exercise, and then a top of the staff G to calibrate their sound. All of this would be measured by the decibel meters and the frequency analyzer. Then, based on the player, a standard orchestral excerpt would be played, or the first phrase of a standard solo, or the head of a screaming big band chart. This data would all be collected and analyzed, and a number would be spit out:
95 MPH – Orchestral Pro / Top Call Lead Player
75 MPH – Promising High School / College / Community Player
50 MPH – Average HS / College / Community Player
Or some number like this (a compilation of the number of harmonic spikes, the magnitude of the spikes, and the dB reading at each of the specified distances).
In a post I submitted in this forum called
The Princess and the Princes, Ed Carroll said, “Allow me to wear my Arnold Jacobs hat for a moment . . . it would be fun, wouldn't it, to illustrate your point with two pieces of equipment: a LED meter (to measure volume) and an oscilloscope (to measure resonance). The game at hand would be to decrease the former while increasing the latter. I'd prefer, however, to train my ears rather than my eyes, making those of you who own stock in Johnson & Johnson very happy.”
Well, this is simply a picture of that idea!
I don’t know how difficult something like this would be to set up between now and the ITG conference, but I think it would be a really interesting attraction that everyone would want to try. This could then be written up in the ITG Journal, of maybe even for someone’s thesis (I have no idea if this is thesis material, but if it is and someone could get credit for it, GREAT!). Then, with all of the parameters in place, this experiment could be duplicated at any university in the future and players at these facilities would say, “Phil Smith and Michael Sachs got a score of 102 at the ITG conference and I’m looking at a 67. Whoa! What do I need to do to find more resonance in my sound?”
Just some thoughts on a Sunday evening.