Quote:
Originally Posted by oldlips48  Whoa, talk about a huge number of conditions and variables from player to player!.
One thing I would add to the water-bucket analogy, Rowuk. Gases are compressible, liquids (from a practical viewpoint) are not. So if you were to duplicate the bucket experiment with air, you would find the airstream entering the bucket to just about match the pressure leaving the bucket, but there would be some compression of the air inside the bucket. You mentioned the elasticity of the cheeks, I think this would have quite an effect considering we're essentially pressurizing two gases (80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen) inside our mouths when we play.
I agree also with the one chamber/two chamber analogy as to the placement of the tongue. Players (like me) that brace the inside of their lower lip with their tongue would also be reducing. the "chamber" size in their mouth.
And all this is not even to mention mouth size, mouth shape, teeth size and placement, lip size and configuration. |
Oldlips,
it is even more complicated. We are not talking about airflow as such because soundwaves are alternating (AC not DC as in the bucket example) in direction and there is a standing wave set up in the horn, players diaphragm to horn and room to diaphragm. We blow because that is the only way to get the lips moving until the resonant system takes hold, then the amount of air required to maintain sound in a reasonably efficient system becomes FAR less!
The vibrating air particles that we create with our playing do not "travel" through the room like water in that bucket. They bump into the neighboring particles and there is even a slight loss of energy passed on with every motion. The compression in the mouth actually changes the speed of sound at the same time - ever talked after swallowing helium? The air that we breathe does not move at the speed of sound to the audiences ear. The air is pretty much static and the soundwaves flow through it..
Yes the analogy of speed (fast air) is as wrong as wrong can be.