Sid Fitch wasn't involved in this was he? -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 4:47 PM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: [Hornlist] New Acoustical Testing of the Horn
Dear Hornlisters, I am very excited about the news I will convey to you here and now! Bruce Lawson and I have been working on this for some time and finally, today, made a major breakthrough in the acoustic analysis of the horn! Bruce has written new software, called SoundStill, that can analyze the sound at any point in the tubing of the instrument. Using our prototype "digital-microphonic input-output pickup," we can literally "make sound stand still" right on the computer screen! The program shows a clear graphic picture of what the tubing is doing to the sound at that particular moment that it travels past the selected point. Far beyond mere Fourier transform sound wave spectrum analysis, which only analyzes what we can hear, this actually shows the exact correlation between the diameter of the tubing, material of its construction, weight (thickness) of the material, hardness/softness of the material, acoustical parameters in relation to the length of tubing, relationships generated by different dynamic (decibel) levels and both acoustic and psycho-acoustic relationships between harmonics generated at any frequency relative to the nodal point being analyzed or, in the case of analyzing a non-nodal point, the acoustic-reference harmonic nearest to that point. For example, I played a third space C on both the F and B sides of a 300,000 series Elkhart Conn 28D with an original NY Giardinelli C8 mouthpiece. We sampled the sound at .0314159 increments throughout the length of the instrument. What we found was that the sound was drastically different for each sample. For instance, at .0314159" in the mouthpiece just past the embouchure, the sound "picture" was a vibrant blood red! At 3.14159" in the leadpipe (yellow brass w/nickel silver cap) the sound "picture" was a sort of desert taupe where at 12.56636" (yellow brass) the sound picture was a deep, Egyptian brown! Further down the pike in the nickel silver valve section, the picture was a brilliant Romanesque yellow! At 138.22996" (where my hand rests in the yellow brass bell flare) the picture was a cloudy, clammy gray on both sides of the horn! We had no idea that this old piece of junk had such colorful sounds and I can't wait to test a new horn! I will keep you appraised of further developments and any musical or non-musical findings that might surface. Thank you! Kendall **************Feeling the pinch at the grocery store? Make dinner for $10 or less. (http://food.aol.com/frugal-feasts?ncid=emlcntusfood00000001) _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/william.s.gross%40gmail.com _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
