This ability to play a single sustained note for 59 minutes is a game changer for me,

I thought I had too few tunes in my set when gigging, I see now that I dont need more tunes I just need longer notes.

Circular breathing opens the door to 30 minute notes for me and a larger paycheck for less effort.

I could make a tune last 24 hours with this approach.

I may pick up the drum sticks and repeat the 2370 beats per minute of that 10 year old who beat the old record, Who needs to learn rhythm when you can kick out almost 3000 beats per minute.

This performance and the 59 minute sustained note are clearly pushing the boundaries of music.

Some say we have lost real music to the sideshow but I say I cant wait until we have the 3 hour sustained note and the 10,000 beats per minute drum solo,

In your dreams Buddy Rich and Miles you guys hadnt got a clue about real music.

There are many reasons why this could be happening, but lets assume the instrument should play and you have the right valves for the instrument.

I assume from your post that the air is being blocked somehow so I will address that.

There could be some blockage in for example the ports between the valves.

Let us first try to make sure the valves are in the right chambers.

Remove all the valves.

Now blow into the mouthpipe and see if air freely exits the mouthpipe into the third chamber with no restriction.

If it does place the third valve in its chamber and secure it with valve guide located. Then blow again into the mouthpipe. If the air is blocked then you have a wrong valve or a valve wrongly fitted.

Reseat the valve 180 degrees apart and see if the air now blows through.

If you cannot get the air to blow through then it is probably a wrong valve try the others and see if the air will blow through.

If the air blows through with the third valve fitted then move on to the second.

Fit the second valve and try to blow through, if you cannot blow through then try the valve 180 degrees the other way.

If you can blow through then fit the first valve and try to blow through.

I know it sounds a bit daft but this method should reveal if the air will move through the instrument with no valves pressed, and also will check all ports between valves are clear.

Once the air blows through you can test there is no blockage in the valve slides by blowing through and then as you blow press a valve.

Once you have made sure air passes through the instrument with no valves pressed and with each valve pressed then there is no blockages.

I assume that one of these tests will reveal a blockage somewhere.

If no blockages exists then you should have the valves all correctly fitted and the instrument should then play.

If this excellent recording by the Leningrad brass sounds this good and this powerful due to their use of home made poorly manufactured instruments made from old car and truck parts then let us all play on such instruments.

I have seen so called musicians complain that they have never managed to get a decent sound out of any bach instrument and likewise other musicians say similar things of shilke or martin or conn.

I have also seen a good musician deliver a superb performance from a so called communist wall-hangar ornament.

I also believe that the communist regime were obsessed by a need to show the superiority of the communist workers over the decadent west and if the instruments really were compromising the performance and making the musicians task impossible then they would have corrected that situation.

I believe that a great musician can make even a stove pipe sound great.

A brass instrument is just a tube, it is the musician that is the heart and soul of a great performance, he does not need some thirty thousand dollar instrument to sound great. The instrument just makes it easier to sound great.

@Dale-Proctor

That is very interesting and very revealing Dale

I guess that examining the mid 1800's at which time, with the recent invention and application of the perinet valve in 1838, the recent creation of the cornet and the lack of any standardisation in pitch makes for huge uncertainties as to what is and what is not a true authentic cornet sound.

I think that we in the modern age are so used to very well designed and well built instruments that we assume that all earlier instruments must have played as easily and as well as our modern instruments do.

The truth is that there were many challenges and many failures in those early days of instrument design and this made playing on these early instruments quite difficult compared to todays modern instruments.

Perhaps we should not take from this any conclusions about instrument design in those early years of cornet/trumpet, but instead simply marvel at the muscianship and abilities of the players of the day in being able to play those early instruments as well as they did in the face of what are in todays terms monumental challenges.

Life today must be easy compared to life in the mid 1800's, and we truly stand musically today on the shoulders of giants.

Additionally I think we should recognise the musicianship and commitment of those modern players like yourself Dale who rise to the challenge to play successfully on those difficult early instruments and are able to recreate the authentic period music on authentic period instruments.

@Kehaulani

Or maybe we dont perform as well as we used to.

I think there are lots of reasons, I like your direct and no messing about way of expressing yourself Kehaulani, it is very refreshing.

You got me on a technicality

Ok first of all dont panic it may be that the instrument is gunged up and needs a really good clean.

I would also suggest that the corks are falling apart, and the water valves corks are probably leaking.

Bad or leaking corks can make an instrument sound strangled. I would take it to a good tech and ask them to make it playable, basically a cork and felt replacement and that should only cost a few dollars and will make a world of difference.

Also they will check the valves are all seated correctly and working correctly.

The instrument sounds like a Reynolds Medalist trumpet these were a premier student trumpet from a great manufacturer and they had many features of professional instruments. It sounds like you have a very good instrument there that is well worth having a tech check it over and it will help you to develop for many years.

I deeply suspect that your conductor had no idea of your quality and that of your daily driver instrument.

Flugels I am led to believe can be somewhat skittish and variable. I must admit somewhat shamefully that I have never played on one.

Just having the name Bach or strad on an instrument is not an absolute guarantee of quality and beauty of tone even though the strad 135 is well respected, especially if the instrument is the worst for wear and has suffered a hard life.

It seems to me that if he knew about flugels he would have recognised your courtois 154r as one of the very best you can play. (going by reputation here).

I like that he reversed his decision when faced with the truth.

I would counter that there was nothing communicated throughout this clip between 0:43 to 2:41

0:43 to 0:50 was the exactly same as 1:10 to 1:30 and exactly the same as 2:10 to 2:30 in content it was the musical equivalent of repeatedly saying

Four score and 17 years ago
Four score and 17 years ago
Four score and 17 years ago
Four score and 17 years ago
Four score and 17 years ago
Four score and 17 years ago
Four score and 17 years ago
Four score and 17 years ago
Four score and 17 years ago

Yes the audience went wild but audiences have gone wild over my performances and that reaction in itself does not mean anything was communicated, other than surprise.

I can make audiences cheer due to surprising them as well as anyone but it is not an aspiration of mine to make a career from simply surprising or shocking people.

They were impressed by trombone shortys ability but there was no communication at all that I could detect beyond "I can do the same thing over and over and over and over again without stopping"

I agree trombone shorty was skillful but being skillful is not communication.

Any politician could have given a speech at ghettysburg, but Abraham Lincoln communicated a message that inspired a nation.

Just repeating the same few notes over and over again for 2 minutes or for 2 hours or for 2 days does not move me at all.

I can listen to an entire performance of The Magic Flute, that is 3 hours and 5 minutes and be entertained from beginning to end but 2 minutes of trombone shorty had me losing the will to live.

Is it possible for Bix to exist today with the internet and music resources so widely available.

Bix could not read music other than on a rudimentary level.

He was not trained in cornet or any brass instrument

He had to work out how to play and used alternate fingerings because he did not know correct fingerings

This led to a number of things, he developed a unique phrasing and style, and he did not write down his improvs or use licks.

In his last appearance he stood and was unable to play anything his improvs deserted him. If he were a modern player with licks a plenty and a strategy for jazz improv he would not have had a problem but instead would have made it through that performance.

He was replaced in the band because of being unable to play when called upon to do so.

If he were born today he would have access to theory training and software that would have moulded him to use correct technique correct fingering a huge number of licks and jazz phrases plus access to Jamey Abersold.

Would he have any chance of becoming the great man that Bix became in his lifetime.

Possibly, but I doubt it.

Students learn to be as their teacher, Bix had no teacher and was free to develop to his full potential in areas that mattered.

I believe that if he was born today Bix would not be Bix.

I believe that the saying keep a fighter hungry applies, Bix was hungry for Jazz and when he couldnt find what he needed he invented it and we all benefit from that.

Long live Bix, the musician the seeker the inventor the ground breaking Jazz man.

Forever we will be in his debt

I should add that most of the problems cited as AI failures or computer failures and the disasters that they caused turn out to be humans making bad decisions and blaming it on AI and the computers.

I do not have a fear of AI I have a concern that humans will corrupt what AI does.

Einstein famously said "I believe two things are infinite, the size of the Universe, and human stupidity - and I am not sure about the Universe"

Humans are the problem with AI not the AI itself.

So I say again I do not feel threatened or worried by AI.

But the humans who control AI, they are a different thing altogether.

@ROWUK I dont recall saying that an AI is in itself or in any way a human state. It is a machine with responses to inputs based upon complex algorithms that mimic human thought and human decision making.

In a closed system a machine can make responses that appear to be human depending upon their sophistication.

Turings Test examines this very question.

If a box exists and questions are posed to the box and the answers received from the box appear to be exactly the same as a human would give, how do we know if inside the box there is a machine or a human.

This is the essence and the problem that AI poses.

We can make a program appear to be human, and we know it is not human, but those who interact with it can be deceived into believing that it is human, Until that is they open the box and look inside.

The question of students using AI to submit papers, is nothing more than a sophisticated Turings test, the professor viewing the paper would be easily deceived that the author is a human and therein lies the issue and the challenge for professors.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it may very well be an AI that is pretending to be a duck.

I am happy that we are in agreement ROWUK

I love that.

Petersons expertise is in philosophy and psychology and while he does stray into other areas generally, here he has stayed solidly within his area of expertise.

I found it hugely amusing and full of hope and his comments were totally on topic and pointedly correct in my opinion.

He seems to be suggesting we have something to fear from AI, I disagree.

Back in the day calculators were banned from the classroom and the examination room, for fear of removing the ability to think from students. The fears were ungrounded.

Right now we have to spend several years and over 100,000 dollars training each human student to become capable and this AI is already capable and genuinely useful.

Beyond this training a student who becomes qualified is not capable until he or she has completed maybe a decade of work and it is the experience gained in this decade of work that truly completes their training.

I dont see the AI learning through working for 10 years and gaining experience in a role.

The AI is like a student fresh from the college, you dont put such a student in charge of anything.

The AI can be looked upon simply as a better tool.

The usefulness of this AI of course only relates to general work tasks and output. Humans are capable of insightful spontaneous and innovative invention.

I dont see the AI taking over the somewhat illogical leaps of thought and intellect that human beings are capable of.

In other words I see the AI just like all other areas of computer advances, taking over the mundane work, but the application of that work, the inspired and inspirational innovation remains the sole province of humans who reside in the genius area of research and development.

An AI after all simply follows rules that humans devise, and that fundamentally limits what they can do.

Poor, Average, and High Quality scientists and engineers follow rules, genius scientists and engineers depart from those rules and break new ground and humanity develops to new heights.

How can an AI break the accepted rules unless it is programmed not to follow rules and that must defeat the AI right from the start.

I dont feel threatened or at all worried.

I think you misunderstand what I was trying to say.

I did not mean he was musically uneducated, reading scores and being musically educated are two different things as you said.

What I mean to say is he developed new styles and ways of playing unrelated to others. This is one of the signs of genius.

It has been said that because Bix was not formally or classically trained he developed a range of alternate fingerings that were unique to him.

In the excellent "Current Research on Jazz" "Bruce Boyd Raeburn" published these words about Bix "Bix is the only musician who created a separate and distinct jazz style"

And then went on to say "Bix pulled his style right out of the sky. He would sit in front of the Joe Oliver band, with Louis in it, enjoy it immensely yet not one phrase or lick did he ever get from them"

For these reasons and many others my opinion is that Bix while he was definitely influenced by others, broke new ground in his playing and his influence on Jazz was profound innovative and influential.

This is the link to the current research on jazz article
https://www.crj-online.org/v4/CRJ-BixNewOrleans.php

@J-Jericho Thanks for confirming that timbre changes are real and present. I had not heard them and had not expected that.

Perhaps different people simply do hear things quite differently, and there can be an acute sensitivity to timbre in some people.

I am put in mind of synesthesia and colour blindness.

Synesthetes see colours and shapes when they hear sounds and perhaps have difficulty understanding those who are not synesthetes.

I should thank the member who opened my eyes to this particular sensitivity to timbre.

I feel it will be valuable to hear other members experiences in this area as well to maybe establish a yardstick this would be valuable to understand on a deeper level what our audiences are actually hearing and experiencing.

@Dr-GO Thanks for the replies.

By the sound of it our experience is much the same, I too have the ability to alter the timbre by embouchure and chops changes.

I suspect that the people who have questioned my ability to hear timbre changes when using valves maybe have more acute heating than I have, but if my hearing is similar to most of the other players then I think I have nothing to worry about.

I dont wish to start a fight or an argument but I am slightly worried by things that have been said to me, so I am asking for an opinion from the gifted players in here.

I am not trying to be funny here it is an honest question after being told how trumpets really sound as they are played.

This is the problem I have.

It has been said that the number of bends or the amount of bend in the wrap alters the timbre of the instrument and this is used to explain why the cornet with an extra 180 degrees of bend in the wrap plus a shepherds crook has a very different timbre than a trumpet with fewer bends and no shepherds crook.

An opinion I have stated in here is that if the bends in the wrap cause a change to the timbre then we should hear different timbres in the trumpet when using different valve combinations because they add bends to the wrap.

The timbre change should be significant and very noticeable when adding three valves compared to playing open for example.

I should also be hearing a large timbre change when playing the exact same note with valves 1 and 2 compared to playing the alternate fingering of valve 3 alone. But I do not hear a timbre change.

I do hear a detectable but slight pitch difference between the two fingerings, but the timbre of the instrument sounds the same to me when the pitch changes.

So why does a trumpet with two valves pressed not sound darker and richer than a cornet played open when the trumpet with two valves pressed has more bends in the wrap than the cornet has when played open.

I have been told that these large timbre changes absolutely do happen when you use the valves and I have been told there is something wrong with my hearing if I cant hear these timbre changes.

When you guys use the valves do your trumpets sound at first like trumpets and then they sound like cornets and then sound like flugel horns.

I do not hear that at all my trumpet sounds like my trumpet as I ascend, I dont think I could play an instrument that sounds radically different in character every time I press a valve. The simplest melody would sound like a bunch of amateurs playing each note separately on a range of brass instruments. I dont want that.

Mariachi trumpet sounds bright but it sounds bright to me on all the notes played, Mariachi doesnt sound like a mariachi when played open and like a flugelhorn when played with all valves down.

All my instruments and I have several have the same timbre as I ascend. The timbre of course is different at the upper register than at the lower register but that is not what been expressed to me.

I do not want to play an instrument that changes its character radically when I press a valve or two. If I have a medical condition that stops me hearing my trumpets correctly, I need to know and get some help.

I feel ridiculous asking this, but I have been told there is something wrong with my hearing so I have to ask the question.

So what is going on enlighten me on this.

@Kehaulani and @a-j-trumpet

I have come to realise that you are both correct.

The boat has indeed sailed as you say Kehaulani.

And Bix was a champion without the benefit of modern tools like internet youtube netflix. He broke new ground in his day totally unaided as did Louis.

Thank you for your comments and for illuminating my understanding.

I am speaking of the playing back of recordings only.

If a note is played on let us say a trombone and the slide is lengthened the pitch falls but there is no tempo as such it is a single note.

If this pitch is played within a piece of music then there are notes preceding and notes following the note in question.

Now we have tempo and pitch together.

If we record this music consisting of pitch and tempo and we speed up the playback of the recording then the pitch rises, they are locked together by the recording medium.

If we slow the playback the pitch falls, again they are locked together.

We can of course in a live performance slow the tempo while keeping the pitches correct, but the thread was only concerned with playing back on a computer, a recording of a performance and the pitch changed while the tempo of the recording was unchanged.

With a cd or a tape recording or a pressed LP, if you alter the tempo you alter the pitch.

Computers can however take a recording with a tempo and pitches and slow the tempo while keeping the pitch constant, or change the pitch without altering the tempo.

I therefore have said pitch and tempo in the real world are locked together but in the computer world they are not locked together.

Or do you perhaps know of a way of changing the speed of a gramaphone or of a tape machine without altering the pitches. I have never seen that I would be very interested in learning of it.

I agree it was speculation, thats why I called it speculation.

Yes I did not place a conclusion at the end because it was speculation and as such should not have a conclusion.

Speculation is for example the light in the sky might be an airoplane, an added conclusion would be, the light in the sky might be an airoplane therefore the light is an airpolane.

Look I am not explaining what pitch is I am explaining that a computer program can control pitch independently of tempo,

Again you misunderstand what I write or misread it.

I explained that pitch and tempo in the real world are locked together I know you know this, but I expanded that with in the computer world pitch and tempo are separated and independently controlled.

If you have a degree in computer communications that does not necessarily include programming and media.

I have 30 years in IT. I have programmed in several languages I have worked in comms I have authored software in assembly language for a major computer manufacturer.

If you claim my post had nothing helpful in it, I would expect that you have asked that of the OP rather than simply express your own opinion.

As for my coming across as being knowledgeable in music I dont believe I am certainly not compared to the majority of members.

I have however learned a great deal and enjoyed some success so I have opinions and I will express them.

And I will say this, you appear to demand that writing in here must have a conclusion, not every piece of writing has a conclusion, stop demanding conclusions all the time.

If the posts to the threads in here are only allowed to have absolute answers in them and every post must have a conclusion then most of the questions will go unanswered and the site might die due to inactivity.

Allow people to speculate, allow people to have opinions, do not demand there must be a conclusion in every post.

Remember that if a thread remains unanswered within a certain time it will be locked and quite right too, but your demands may force the locking of threads due to there being no replies.

We dont want that do we.

There thats a conclusion

Feel free to complain about my wall of text