Wendell, Good points. Yes, and we must remember that the 'sound' of a horn is a complex system, and much does depend on the player's concepts of phrasing and many other factors. When many of us think of the 'tone' of a horn we may recall just the 'steady state' portion of the sound. But that is really not a major factor in our perception. For example, our perception of tone quality, in terms of identification at least, often comes largely from the first 1 or 2 milliseconds of the sound! Remember that old BBC film made in the 50s in which they had some guys in lab coats cut off the first chunk of tape of the sounds of an oboe playing g'' and a string section playing g''? After the attack formant is removed with a pair of scissors, nobody can tell what instrument(s) is playing! The oboe's steady state matches the string section on the same note. Without the attack we don't have enough 'data' to identify the instrument in this case. I actually used that concept to do a 'tibral modulation' from string section to a solo oboe in an orchestral piece of mine, and the effect was very nice. And once many years ago, I did an electronic composition (musique concrete) in which I assembled shoe boxes full of magnetic tape snippets of various pitches, produced by myself on the horn and then chopping into small segments. They lacked the attacks on the tones. After assembling into a collage, the resultant sound is not identifiable as that of being produced on a horn at all, but more like a sequenced pattern of electronically generated tones. The result surprised even me at that time.
Bob -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Wendell Rider Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2010 11:44 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Hornlist] Colour Blind On Feb 25, 2010, at 10:00 AM, [email protected] wrote: > I've heard that some conductors want the section players to use the > same > make of horn. How many players or principals would insist on this? > Personally, I think this is a silly, or at least fruitless, tactic. > I've > found that horns within the same model vary considerably. I tried 14 > Merkers > before I bought the one I have now, and each horn was different by a > surprising amount. I've tried a gazillion Conn 8ds, and they are all > distinct to some degree, in tone, playing characteristics, and > especially > intonation. Couple that with the variances between players, and the > brand > name distinctions become irrelevant. JMTCW. > > Wendell, remember way back when when you tried various horns on > stage in the > San Francisco opera house, and folks listened to the differences? I > just > remember that--though there were differences-- you ALWAYS sounded like > Wendell Rider. > > I was also interested to note the claim in this post that nickel > silver > horns are brighter in tone than brass horns. I've gone through my > whole life > thinking the opposite, and hearing the opposite. I could still be > mistaken, > it's just a curious note. > > Bob Dickow > Lionel Hampton School of Music Hi Bob, Thanks for weighing in on this. I think when we try horns there is a big factor of how we will always try to play any horn the way way we want it to sound. By trying to get the sound we want out of any horn we pick up we definitely impart our sound on that horn. But i think there is more to it than that. Part of the way I play, and you have been listening to me since we were in grade school, is how we phrase and how our breathing creates a legato style and our conception of an excerpt or solo. I think that has as much to do as anything with me being Wendell on any horn i pick up and how you perceive it. To me, a lot of what I will like about a horn is how well it suits my style of play. That is pretty obvious, but when I am trying a horn, I will always be trying to be me and get what I want. As far as the bright and dark things with different metals goes, Again it comes down to terminology and being specific. Most "silver" horns in our day were 8Ds with thin bells with large throats. The throat sound is more spread out, which many people refer to as a darker sound, but the heavier nickel metal rolled thin creates an edge on the sound that many would also describe as brighter. Brass, in a similar configuration would sound darker to most people. Most of the brass horns we play on have smaller throats with a more compact sound that many describe as brighter. Obviously, there are so many possible combinations of these factors that we could go on all day with this. I think brighter and darker are just two descriptions of a very complex sound, and the sound and its parts will change according to range and dynamics on horns of different metals. On of my knowledgeable friends, who shall stay nameless in this discussion, once said that "we play small on a big bell horn and big on a small bell horn." So on an 8D, for example we try to find a smaller part of the spread out tone to expand on, while on a smaller belled horn we take the whole sound and try to expand on that. I'm just throwing that out there for what it is worth since this does make sense to me but it might not to anyone else. I would agree that brass is a darker sound in my universe, but it depends totally on the other factors that i have mentioned. Cheers Bob, and say hello to Betsy for me. Wendell For info about my book, DVDs and live video chat horn lessons, see my web site at www.wendellworld.com _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/dickow%40uidaho.edu _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
