Posts made by ROWUK

This is approaching at the speed of light. Any comments about the ordeal, preparation and comeback? It is just lower jaw - for now. The teeth are fine but the bone...

My favorites where I have done regular business or have close friends working there and occasional business:
Thompson Music in Omaha
Thomann in Burgebrach, Germany (yes, they have an awesome storefront)
Musik Bertram in Freiburg, Germany
Rainer Jordan in Limburg, Germany
Long&McQuade in Toronto, Canada

In my world, the difference between a trumpet and cornet are 99% inside the head of the player. Cornet players have a more "intimate" approach. Great cornets allow you to play the 16 repeats that Clarke writes into his technical studies...

I have several "the ones". It all depends on what I am playing. Big band (Selmer Radial), Modern symphony/brass quintet(Monette), early classical (Haydn, CPE Bach, etc.: Saurle natural trumpet copy), romantic german(Heckel rotary Bb), baroque (Haas natural trumpet copy), rennaissance (cornetto). I have opportunities to play most of these genres on varying instruments, but the mentioned horns are my personal preferences. Not every booking gives me a choice about which instrument to use.

That being said, my Monette Raja is the horn where playing involves the least amount of conscious effort. It "speaks" on a whisp of air, sonically goes anywhere that I think about and because of the built in mouthpiece - leaves no room for question marks.

@tjcombo said in Structure of the Trumpet by Yamaha:

@Trumpetsplus

@ Rowuk, I guess this is totally the wrong thread on which to be pedantic and point out that pedal C on a trumpet is resonating at a half wavelength (of the horn). It is relevant to how a trumpet works.

A small hint - it is resonating at the whole wavelength but because of the strength of the first overtone (due to the horn function of the too small bell) we hear the overtone - not the fundemental. If one end were closed like on Gedackt organ pipes, then the wavelength would fold. Get a spectrum analyser out and see what frequencies are present. I have been there and done that

I remember the Buzz/Phooey discussion at TrumpetMaster. It went nowhere fast.

The lips open and close like a valve at a rate related to the length of the trumpet. Each fingering has multiple notes based on the wavelength being played. The pedal note is one wavelength in the instrument. Low C is 2 wavelengths, G is 3 wavelengths, third space C is 4 wavelengths. This continues until our lips are no longer able to open and close - due to pressure, tension or lack of being supple.

I consider the buzz or alternate start of lip vibration to be an insignificant semantic argument with no redeeming value. We are talking about the same thing: ignition of the lips, initialization of the vibrating mode. Regardless if one calls it Phooey or a buzz, fact is, we blow air through the lips with a certain amount of lip tension and they resonate. This blow can be a relaxed exhale to a forceful expulsion of air. Articulation comes later when we modify the start to "speak". To speak a "phoo or foo" we would need our lower teeth on the upper lip prior to ignition. That certainly does not line up with most embouchures - especially considering that most have an overbite (upper teeth in front of lower teeth). Perhaps for players with an underbite (upper teeth behind the lower teeth) phoo would be what at least they "think" that they are doing. Considering that ignition needs freely vibrating lips, beyond the exhale, it really does not matter.

Some players have trouble with a free buzz. That is in most cases insignificant as we always play trumpet through a mouthpiece. Some players have trouble with a buzz through a mouthpiece. This is also in many cases insignificant as we rely on the resonances of the horn to modulate and stabilize pitch. Some like buzzing free, on the mouthpiece or with some resonance enhancing scheme (leadpipe or P.E.T.E). Good for them. It never helped my playing and I never taught it. I certainly would not criticize another teacher with good experience in buzzing however-as long as the player is getting a well balanced routine every day.

I found the arguments at TrumpetMaster regarding this to be little more than annoying as the real issues of getting the sound started are masked in senseless arguing.

If we can't get our semantics to line up, then beating a dead horse is not productive. Let us just talk about ignition instead.

As far as Yamahas claim to deeper cups being more mellow, science backs this up. The more cup volume, the more it acts like a low pass acoustical filter - reducing upper harmonics (compared to a cup with less volume). Less harmonics is a "darker/more mellow" sound.

The throat/backbore indeed also has great effect on sound and intonation as well as efficiency. That has nothing to do with Yamahas claims at the mentioned website.

We should never forget that the target audience determines the semantics. The casual reader really could care less and at least gets some valid pre-chewed recommendations. As they advance in perception and capability, they go elsewhere for mor detailed info.

We should never forget Maurice Andrés Hora Legato!

@Niner It was never "my" problem. I moderated happily at TrumpetMaster - in spite of a lot of challenges. I only visit here occasionally as there really is little "new" or "stimulating" where I want to get more involved.

I disagree with just deleting "offending" posts. Often the offense is just a moment of stupidity and does not apply to the whole post or the person in general. But to each his own. You certainly are within your constitutional rights ˝to favor whatever you like!".

Håkan is trying to unlock her ears and brain. She is a well accomplished technical player BUT she is not listening to the result of her playing in the room. She is playing "safe" inside her head. It will take time to develop these additional talents. She shows great promise!

@Kehaulani said in Does a large bore horn take more air?:

So I'm a little confused.

Could we summarize, then, in layman's terms, that the amount of air required doesn't necessarily depend upon what the bore size is but, rather, upon the collective design of the horn which includes a myriad of factors?

In other words, do some horns take "more air", horn-by-horn, depending on how it's constructed rather than on bore size alone?

Exactly this - horn by horn, depending on how it is constructed, how we hear ourselves, the efficiency of the entire body/mind/mouthpiece/trumpet/playing environment system. Even the term "amount of air" is not correct as our bodies have no measure of this except running out before a phrase is finished. We can believe that the horn is a loose blow indoors, we take it out to an open lake and the same system is like blowing into a brick wall!

@Dr-GO said in Frustrated:

To me Rowuk was the role model of moderators. Tough love is the best!

Thank you, but I was not trying to be a role model. I was just trying to keep the fluff out. There was nothing to prove - except that discourse needs more than a weak opinion.

@Niner You misunderstood me... The moderator very much decides if the content is malicious and then calls the shot to delete/edit or not. I disagree with deleting the whole message if there is otherwise worthy content. All or nothing is too much of a fundamentalist standpoint and very contrary to life in general. Even at TrumpetMaster, I often edited posts, retaining the original intention without the ugly. Malicious posts with no redeeming value did get deleted however - at the cost of abuse that comes with the territory.

As far as what the job of a moderator is, I suspect that we are miles apart - but not as you seem to believe. Moderators in my world have a very active role in the way things work. They should be active publicly and behind the scenes. It is better to defuse escalations rather than editing posts afterwards. For those in the community unwilling, there should be defined instances on how to regulate and when to terminate. I am very content here to have a completely different role than at TrumpetMaster. No more accusitions by the lazy for being a moderator and having a public opinion too! I never was interested in lowest common denominator or general concensus. There is simply too much BS posted at trumpet sites.

This is not a moderated site like some of the technical ones that I visit. There one submits a paper for approval after which it is published or denied. There is no "ad hoc" posting. That would not be my (or probably anyone elses) model for here - but on the other hand, a reason that we have a relatively low MegaByte to Content relationship.

Moderation is in fact a double edged sword. On the one side, posting shows us the character of the poster - a measure by which we can decide what is worth reading. Postings also generate context that gets lost when things disappear. I agree that the best way is to "edit" the offense, clearly label the edit with the name of who edited and why. Deleting complete posts is on occasion necessary because of the content.

My experience at TrumpetMaster with PMing offenders was not generally positive (exceptions proving the rule). For someone with no sense of what freedom of speech costs, you cannot teach them this online. Often it is better to part ways.

After TrumpetMaster went down (with no warning or first hand information to this date), I reviewed my online activity and decided that I would not jump in to any new forum with the same "attitude". Some here surely welcome this. To be honest, I have found no trumpet forum where I "take home" as much as I invest. There are other forums where we stretch the envelope however. The mix of users is different, with less casual approaches to the technology. This is where my energy is going these days. Here, I am very content to browse and occasionally post - without repeating myself as much as I did at TrumpetMaster. I also seem not to be the focus of hate anymore (regardless of the underlying reasons).

In this respect, I too am a bit frustrated, but that is my problem where the trumpet is concerned. I am less interested in entertainment and more interested in what motivates players to take that "next step".

Fortunately, I have no site issues with MacOS and Safari. I am happy that someone decided to run and offer the TMers a new home.

@Jolter said in Tone Centering for Trumpet (Centering & Tuning) Part III:

Thanks for posting this thread! I found the link very informative and it helped me with how to think about (and visualize) slotting. The discussion has been slightly less educational but only slightly so.

One thing that bugs me about the article is that if you come at it from a scientific (or in my case, engineering) perspective, that figure is extremely confusing at first. Only after a while did I understand what it was supposed to illustrate: how the Y axis means pitch, yet the orange surface area indicates the amount of overtones. To an engineer, those two values do not belong in the same diagram...

@Trumpetsplus said in Tone Centering for Trumpet (Centering & Tuning) Part III:

Not a fan of recreational (part-time) trumpet players indulging in deliberately avoiding the resonance of their instrument. I have a colleague who bends notes so often in his public warmup that he is unable to start any note in tune. Blog on this coming up in the next week or so.

I think I saw an interview (old stuff, 80's) with Håkan Hardenberger where he describes doing severe pitch bends (downward) as part of his practice routine. I don't recall if it was part of the warmup or not, but I think it was supposed to help with embouchure development somehow. I've only seen one or two people doing it, in person, but there seems to be some sort of "method" to it.

Yes, there is some method to it - for people that practice as much as Håkan does. The problem is that we are supposed to train fine motor capability at any level. Moving on to advanced concepts without the foundation builds a contraproductive six pack with our face muscles!

@OldSchoolEuph said in Does a large bore horn take more air?:

It amazes me how much of this thread seems to equate energy required to produce a given dynamic with "takes more air". Seems like just another discussion of "resistance" in many respects.

When it come to actual fluid flow, there are two factors. For the equipment, the mouthpiece throat determines flow at a given pressure. The bore simply cannot be relevant because it is not the venturi. The other point at which flow can differ is the embouchure, with some folks needing more flow through to vibrate as greater energy into the horn is required to produce the desired result. At some point, these will come into conflict if the player is too inefficient in their part, and the pressure in the cup will exceed what the orifice at its base can flow, resulting in leaks around the edge.

But when a horn "takes more air", it is because we opt to increase the embouchure flow rate as a means of stepping up energy input to the horn, not because of some vacuum to fill with a 0.003" larger diameter tube. (Bach ML to L)

Word!

Playing on the resonant center is at least the most efficient way to play. The problem is that we trumpeters do not play „well tempered“! An E in a C Major, A Major or F#7 all are different frequencies. That means that we are always adjusting - some. We do not have regulation for the second valve, so have to accept some non centered playing. Many trumpets also have intonation issues.

Fortunately, fine trumpets do not have knife edge slots so we can manage and still get great tone. Monette talks a lot about pitch center and how we muscle our bodies to correct design faults and other bad habits. I have done a lot of the things that he recommends and can say that the journey involves more than the resonant center of the instrument. We have to reduce body tension in a serious way to really benefit from the resonant center.

I remember reading about Schilke trying out lead, glass and other stuff for bell material. I remember the quotes about overtones. My own tests have shown a lot of this to be myths. As fine as the Schilke trumpets are, I never understood the need for Renolds „exaggerations“ (not just with the bell myths). I have played and measured plastic, wood, carbon fiber, pure silver, bronze, brass, copper, concrete and glass. The overtones on ALL OF THEM were the exact same frequencies, just varying in amplitude a bit. The shape played the biggest role in the tone. The biggest challenge with the instrument is how we hear ourselves. The thickness and temper of the bell as well as the bracing control what we hear and how our ears and brain react. The harder it is to hear ourselves, the more we think that we need more air.

I play long tones first with no attack. The horn should speak on a whisp of air in all necessary registers. Then I check intervals to see if the entire system is in tune with itself. I do not play long passages, rather only short things that I have prepared well. Nothing to show off. Normally, I have a reference instrument with me to keep me grounded and open minded.

In a store or someones house, I have no chance to test "projection" or "power" so I don't. If there is a church or reasonably sized hall with good acoustics. near by, I try to take it there to test how well I hear myself when playing as well as other things needing space.

I always have a trusted second set of ears to also judge from the receiving end.

@Kehaulani
The lips need "air" to float on. The horn takes care of the "sympathetic" vibrations. The "problem" is that when we play higher and louder we need a mechanism - that is lip tension. To compensate for that increased tension, we must blow harder to keep the lips in a suspended state where they vibrate sympathetically.

Perhaps it is useful to think about the lips not as a vibrating "reed", rather a "massive" damping unit with a soft/flexible surface. When we buzz, we simply match pressure and tension. The lips open and close like a switch.

Laurie Frink
Liesel Whitaker
Ingrid Jensen
Valaida Snow
Bria Skonberg
Kiku Collins

Let‘s not talk about gender, rather what makes any particular player special. This is my second shortlist. Any ideas why I listed these people?