Posts made by Trumpetb

Kinda yes/no probably no.

The LA valves were quite different to the Fullerton valves there was a radical change to the guides that forced changes to the valves.

Most of the Ambassadors available are Fullertons and therefore unsuitable for an LA Special

Even during the LA period they changed the guides which changed the valves.

The result is you would have to buy an LA Ambassador to have any hope of valve compatibility between an Ambassador and an LA Special and both would have to have the exact same late LA valve design.

There are also differences between the early LA valve stem and late LA valve stem that would require the valve and the stem and maybe other parts to stay with the valve they came with and they may make the valves incompatible as well.

For example the early valve stem not only is a different length to the later valve stem but also has a different fixing to the valve so you have to use the same stem that comes with the valve and the chance of vertically aligning the valve is therefore slim.

This site shows the issues

https://www.robbstewart.com/olds-early-trumpets

The LA Ambassador uses the square shaped bar as a valve guide, if your Special has the same square shaped bar then it might be physically compatible with an LA Ambassador.

LA Ambassadors are quite rare and carry a premium cost.

Even if they are physically compatible the port positions are likely to be wrong anyway.

To put this in perspective an LA Ambassador may be a bit cheaper than a LA Special but will come with a heap of uncertainty and possibly extra costs on top so I would not even consider replacing an LA Special valve with an LA Ambassadors valve and have the extra risk.

You are probably better buying another LA Special and you will then know the valve will fit and you can use whichever instrument plays best. Additionally if the one you choose develops a problem you can simply swap the third valve over and have a second instrument. It would be as close as possible to a zero cost fix.

It just wont be cost effective to try to get an Ambassador valve to work in my opinion.

And you wont know the condition of the Ambassadors valve before you see it and that may come with issues as well.

You have not said why you need a replacement valve perhaps it might be fixable by a tech at far less cost than trying to source a suitable Ambassadors valve if that were even possible.

I understand your position it must hurt to give up what you love and selling your instrument does make some sense, but I would countenance a pause before finally taking that step and doing so.

My instruments carry memories for me that are precious to me and perhaps if you hold on to it, in a few years time you may feel the same and perhaps be glad that you did.

Many players have played beyond tooth-loss some with dentures some with implants so there may be some hope there.

I would not be so crass as to try to give advice but you have a connection to this instrument and it carries some of your history your memories and your growth as a musician.

Once it has gone it has gone forever.

Please decide carefully.

@BigDub

Understood, I guess we will have to put it down to experience.

I have seen some strange and odd behaviour too and just had to give up on trying to understand it, I just had to ignore it and move on and say it is what it is and try to take something positive from it.

Music can be more art than science sometimes and have an unpredictability that intrigues, that is part of its appeal and its beauty.

One day maybe we will understand what happened until then let us just make good music and have a ball doing it.

Good luck to you sir

I feel I should perhaps add the perception of tempo and of pitch in a piece are in my opinion slightly different.

What I mean by that is a slowing down of overall timing of a device playing a recorded work is more noticeable in pitch than in tempo.

A 1% or 2% slowing of tempo might pass unnoticed and in performances in general a 1% or 2% variation of timing is not excessive.

Pitch however is very noticeable and even a 1% change is often revealed starkly and is easily identified using a modern tuner or simply by observation while playing an instrument at correct pitch at the same time.

It may be the case therefore that a system slowdown sufficient to affect the pitches would be instantly revealed in pitch changes whereas the attendant tempo changes would be much harder to detect and therefore the conclusion might be reached that pitch has changed but the tempo has not.

I am sure I would reach that same conclusion as it would take great effort to measure and to spot very slight tempo changes that are associated with slight pitch changes.

That is a great insight mr barliman2001 thank you for that knowledgeable contribution

That is odd and confusing.

Without any more information I would be just speculating and that wont help anyone.

I hope this doesnt return, but we cant be sure it wont.

If it does return try to take some measurements to see what the pitch and tempo are during the fault condition and if they are consistent and unchanging or instead they change over time, then comparing the results with the correct pitch and tempo might help to point towards the cause.

Additionally noting what software is running at the same time as when the fault occurs, and what you believe might have changed just before or while the fault struck might help diagnose the problem.

Softwares can sometimes conflict in bizarre ways.

Systems can sometimes report their resource usage in a utility and this might be examined while the fault is occurring.

I have also had some success with using ping to a remote system that is pingable.

A ping returns a timing value, so if during the fault the ping return takes a much longer time than it normally does then this can reveal a general slowdown of the system during the fault and it can also yield a percentage slowdown figure as well.

If the ping is slowed during the fault, the cause of slowing the ping down might also be causing the pitch issue.

A specialist may need to be consulted however.

Intermittent problems can be very difficult to analyse and trace.

Other than that good luck with it.

Pitch is represented by timing, in other words, middle c is 256 hz or 256 cycles per second a above middle c is 440 cycles per second.

If you slow the cycles per second of a note played at a at 440 cycles per second down to 256 cycles per second it will sound exactly like a c.

A correct pitch then produced by a computer is dependent upon the speed that the computer operates at.

If the computer runs slow the pitches will all be flat.

I have done some work many years ago in the area of computer basic operations and the speed of internal clock operations in computers.

What I would say is, the speed of the computer governs the pitches the computer plays in exactly the same way that slowing down a vinyl record lowers the pitch or a train hooter sounding as it moves away lowers the pitch.

Computers are run at whatever speed the system board clock cycle allows them to run at and this may vary and can affect the speeds that software programs run at and the pitches they produce.

Computers cannot be relied upon to govern speeds correctly they run faster or slower depending upon hardware and software resource usage.

The only computer systems that can be relied upon for correct and consistent speed of operation are real time systems that control traffic lights aerospace and flight systems. We dont have access to those real time systems they are very expensive.

The only caveat to this is if the computer is configured with a separate clock system external to the system board such as a timing chip on a separate device, or an external clock maintained and accessible over an external interface such as an internet timer clock.

Even if there is a clock governing the absolute time for pitches, if the computer suffers timing issues the pitches the computer generates must suffer.

One such internet timer clock is the world clock but that is not generally useful for timing a computer internally down to microseconds, and it is not useful to try to do this.

I am not at all surprised that inconsistent pitches in music played by computer systems has been seen, what I am surprised at is that these effects are noticed so little,

For example a music score played over an internet connection depends upon the packets delivered over an internet contended link. If the packets are delivered too slow the pitches may be affected, or pauses appear.

This means musical phrases are sliced up into parts and then reassembled in the computer, and if there is lots of traffic over the internet then slowdowns brownouts and dropouts are inevitable.

A router might receive 350,000 packets per second so pitches at 256 or 440 cycles per second are sliced up into fragments of cycles and each one must be assembled in the correct order or the pitch is corrupted in some way.

We cannot expect music to keep correct time there are too many variables, we cannot expect computers to even play a cd or a dvd or internet music correctly, it is simply not the way computers are designed to operate.

Typically modern computers have enough resources available to not run out while we listen to music so we dont see these effects but there is still a risk of that happening.

I cannot explain the symptoms described there are too many factors at play, it may be due to a temporary loss of of resources preventing correct timing of a short duration that then cleared itself when whatever consumed the resources stopped acting, then the software could operate correctly once more.

It could be that the software running had a corruption and that surfaced as a slowdown.

Resource loss is the usual culprit for slowdown and stagnation it being fairly common for a bad program to consume 100% of the computers resources and nothing is then left for music programs to use.

Expect to see this problem re surface occasionally.

My background credentials are in computer technical support, systems building, and systems troubleshooting on all platforms from intel to motorola to sun unix plus tcpip comms and ethernet.

Ahhh that makes sense, thanks

@Kehaulani

I very much doubt he is a castrato.

The last known castrato was Alessandro Moreshi, he died age 65 in 1924.

The castrato procedure was I believe outlawed in 1870 partly because not everyone undergoing it survived the procedure.

I have heard a recording of Alessandro and as I recall the pitches of his upper range sounded quite different to Phillipes pitches and were noticeably higher and with a sweeter quality to the timbre.

Presently Dimash Kudaibergen is said to have the highest singing voice, with a six octave range although I have not heard him sing in his upper register.

I hesitate calling Phillipes range falsetto, falsetto is I believe said to have characteristically breathy flutey and hollow tones airy and lacking a purity of vowels.

I feel that the vowels are strong in Phillipes singing with a lack of airiness so I would suggest something other than falsetto may be more accurate or appropriate but I am not a singer so I am floundering in deep water here.

@Kehaulani

Utterly beautiful

Thank you Kehaulani.

I love this, the recorder, a difficult instrument, is played so masterfully.

And her singing is utterly gorgeous, her articulation and enunciation is fabulous and effortless and she is nailing the pitches.

May I in return introduce you to Phillipe Jaroussky

I never tire of hearing him

A simple folk song that is fitting at this time of year but I include it not because of its subject or timing but because of its elegance.

It shows an understated beauty of ancient instruments alongside the human voice and with a purity of tone and a quality of presentation that exceeds that which is normally expected or delivered.

The whole weaves a rich sound tapestry of haunting delicacy and artistry.

For me this is so simple and yet so sophisticated and at the same time highly developed.

@Dr-GO I cannot imagine the pure joy of sharing such moments and sharing a space in time with Till and being worthy of it.

I am too late myself with so many of those who have now departed although Till exists, it may take me what remains of my lifetime to measure up to him.

Some would say that we would be lucky one day to be good enough and to have that opportunity.

I say there is no luck there is only hard work and we make our opportunities.

I believe we create ourselves and we forge ourselves on the anvil of hard work, Till has done so as Miles Chet Louis Harry and all those other greats have done and did before him and before us.

We stand on the shoulders of Giants and one day if we work hard enough we might stand beside them as you have done.

This unmuted playing is for me intrinsically Chet and not Miles.

The sensitive and very intimate breathy phrasing and gentle vulnerability that we hear here, I have heard in Chets playing so many times and it is characteristic of it and it speaks to my soul.

I love Chet and I love Miles both, and both speak from a different perspective and both bring different emotions and articulation to their playing.

This although neither Chet nor Miles, speaks to me as powerfully as any work by Miles or by Chet, thank you for posting it.

We are hearing work of the highest quality here and hearing the work of genius equal to the very best in the world.

I say Chet not Miles.

This is an example of the distinctions between thought knowledge and experience.

This bot/algorithm has access to information, or knowledge

There is predetermined reactions to conditions which can be at one level considered to be thought

There is no direct experience available to the algorithm but instead an accumulation of or sum of external experience within a dataset which is interrogated by the algorithm.

The inevitable result is the regurgitation of already published data that meets the criteria of a search.

No independent research is possible other than already existing research that has been provided by independent human researchers and authors.

This is no more or less than what happens already with humans who have limited knowledge or limited experience or limited mental capacity or all three.

To be fearful of this technology is to be fearful of students or children. Children and students however are constrained by knowledgeable experts like parents and teachers but no such constraints exist for this algorithm

The danger that this technology brings is one of gaining false respect and confidence of its users and of the public.

Because it is a machine based functionality it gathers information indiscriminately and then presents that information as though it is high quality knowledge without any discrimination or testing.

There is no attempt or ability to validate its results before presentation and the results can be misleading.

We have already seen the following.

"many players now use a piccolo trumpet or a flugelhorn to play in the lower range, as these instruments are generally easier to play and to tune"

The algorithm has no means of understanding or realising that a piccolo trumpet is not easier to play than a Bb trumpet, similarly the algorithm states that the flugelhorn is easier to play in tune than a Bb trumpet.

Neither of these statements are correct and yet the algorithm cannot understand that and presents both those statements as correct.

For example a man cannot fly. We all know this and anyone living knows this, but the algorithm is not living and the algorithm does not and cannot know this.

The algorithm would discover it by discovering already published opinion that a man cannot fly. It would then declare that a man cannot fly. If however I were to publish an opinion that a man can fly and the algorithm discovered that statement, the algorithm would learn from that statement that a man can fly and then it would declare that a man can fly.

This is harmless enough in the context of playing a brass instrument, but in the context of let us say managing the safety on a building site, the algorithm might easily give instructions that may increase risk of operations and significantly reduce the safety of the site in particular and humanity in general.

There are good reasons and motives for developing this technology but we should remember that some of the worst things in the world have been done for the best motives.

I see nothing inherently wrong or worrying with this technology as long as the results it generates are not simply accepted on face value without strong validation and the use of sensible checks and balances.

That is well said kehaulani much time and effort has been squandered on this topic, but I believe it was right to so squander it.

This is a fundamentally important issue and in my opinion many players early technique has been damaged by misunderstanding buzzing what it is and why it is done.

It is easy to buzz and easy to buzz badly and very hard to stop doing it once you start and then you sound like a hunter calling a duck.

Some of the worst trumpet playing in recorded history is due to this issue of buzzing a note instead of playing a note, and yes there is a difference.

I hope to further expose the fundamental issue by taking the discussion out of trumpet context and into the context of early instruments of 500 years ago. Please indulge me on this it is a salutary lesson and holds a warning to us all on the topic of buzzing I think.

The Zink or cornett or cornetto is a medieval instrument that was popular from years 1450 through to 1650.

This was recognised as the most beautiful sounding instrument beyond any other and the best players were superstars.

It was also recognised as the most difficult to learn, and consisted of a small trumpet mouthpiece set into a woodwind instrument similar to an early wooden flute.

Then the black death came along and wiped out all the makers and players leaving nobody to learn this most difficult instrument from.

Records stating the existence of both makers and players that existed before the black death showed they were entirely missing from society after the black death, it is thought they all died in that outbreak.

With no good players or teachers to learn from the instrument usage completely died out then and performers had to teach themselves, it appears that they believed they should buzz into the mouthpiece cup and this makes sense, a beginner who knows no better believes that buzzing is what you do into a trumpet mouthpiece to make a noise.

For the next 300 years this most beautiful sounding instrument was reported as sounding like the braying of a cow or donkey or duck and nobody was inclined to learn how to play this horrible sounding instrument properly.

During the last 60 years inspired and serious players made great efforts to rediscover how to play this instrument properly and it has now rightly been elevated back to sounding beautiful again.

We have Bruce Dickey to thank for at least some of this work.

Even today buzzing is taught to players wishing to learn to play this instrument that can so easily sound like a cow a donkey or a duck, and I suggest that the story of the Zink could so easily be the story of the trumpet.

I believe that buzzing killed the Zink for 300 years. This topic is that important. I think that DR-GO ROWUK Kehaulani have all made excellent contributions to a very important topic and the admins have done well by allowing this to be explored.

I believe this is monumentally important and feelings can run high on this topic.

Yes Buzzing can be useful and yes Buzzing can be harmful. We are lucky we have great players like DR-GO and Kehaulani we are lucky we have great teachers like ROWUK and this site is lucky to have great admins.

Buzzing is like a two headed snake that can easily bite us but it is useful to have around.

Let us all remember the story of the Zink and beware of bad buzzing.

@GeorgeB

A sad story george and I sympathise.

Forgive me for jumping in with no knowledge of her and you may have already fully investigated her playing.

Could it be perhaps that her mouthpiece is not helping.

She has only been playing for 4 years and perhaps has moved to too large a mouthpiece for her chops in an effort to cultivate richer tones. A common problem when starting out.

If this is true she may be suffering as well with an abridged and compressed range due to the rim size being too big, If the rim size is too big it doesnt support the lips so more effort is needed to play well in all ranges.

This can then lead to too much pressure trying to compensate, which then causes endurance issues as her embouchure collapses under the strain and the pressure.

I am sure you are right about her air use but there might be some other things at work here as well.

Apologies for all the speculation and the interference, but I had to mention it. 4 years is not a long time and her embouchure and chops are not perhaps as well developed as in your good self. And there are many things that can affect endurance and could be looked at again.

Even a rim shape change can help sometimes with endurance.

For me good endurance comes from not over using or straining the chops and low mouthpiece pressure plus good use of air support. (and several other things as well)

And you know if you can make a few suggestions about the mouthpiece size and rim shape and use of low pressure and those tips end up helping her even a little, then her confidence in you will grow and you never know she might start listening to you about air use as well where it really counts.

Thats my 2c

@Kehaulani

Loving both of those thanks for the share

Expressionism takes many forms.

The form I am exploring is the connection from heart to heart or soul to soul and how we can achieve this directly in music.

The communication of emotions and feelings from player to listener and what might make that communication stronger and more direct and makes music more potent.

In arts the artist looks into themselves and then uses their experience and expertise to represent what they find there, be that sadness happiness satisfaction peace or dynamism.

The listener hears this and their brain then tries to understand what is heard. This is natural and is very much a human reaction to sounds.

The brain however stops the sound dead in its tracks and direct communication soul to soul is easily blocked when the mind gets in the way.

By slowing down the pace and the timing the sounds have a greater chance to filter down past the brain and reach the heart and soul.

This is I think the secret of at least one form of expressionism, giving the listener time to hear the sounds without the brain moving on to soon in its quest for understanding and the heart can then be reached.

This is perhaps why whalesong can captivate and mean so much to listeners it is slow and the listener has time to absorb the sounds to their heart and soul.

It is perhaps of significance that when whalesong is heard, the listener is fidgety and unreceptive for some minutes and then undergoes a transformation and enjoys the experience.

Perhaps the initial few minutes of displeasure is the time it takes for the brain to give up interfering with the listening process, and then the heart can hear the whalesong and enjoy it.

Taking a medium or fast paced melody and slowing it right down can make it very expressionistic and it can in its slow form mean a great deal to the listener.

Think of the slowest melodies you have listened to from funeral march to folk tunes to great works that are full of meaning and expression they are often the most emotionally charged.

I have as an experiment taken a well known nursery rhyme and played it at normal pace then played it very fast paced and then played it very slow paced and asked listeners what they felt.

The fast pace was reported as energetic the medium pace was reported as happy, the slow pace was reported as very emotionally charged and meaningful.

There is a limit however to how slow we can play for it to be meaningful and we can slow a melody down so much that it then becomes meaningless.

Adam Neely has done some work in this area and expressed that slowing music down suggests austerity solemnity and contemplation. The slowest musical notation is Grave, and has a similar meaning perhaps to grave danger and to burial plot.

Adam suggested that anything slower than 33 bpm is difficult for human listeners to comprehend as music.

The common expression "take the time to smell the roses" is perhaps saying all we need to know about pace where it affects emotions.

I for one welcome the comments of Barliman.

If a discussion descends from logic and measured comments through arguments and becomes abusive it is already too late for an admin to do anything other than act as a sheriff in a brawl so a timely reminder to keep things polite before they fall apart is very helpful.

If feelings run high and they do with this topic, then unwise words can easily follow and then fireworks happen so Barlimans wise words are right on point.

I believe this discussion was very useful and I learned something important that I had neglected to consider.

DR-GO showed himself to be both knowledgeable and open to new ideas and willing to change his position if reason justifies it.

ROWUK opened my eyes to the usefulness of buzzing to aid the rapid recovery of skills lost. Something we must never lose sight of if we wish to be educators

This is what makes this forum excellent and makes it stand out from the rest, knowledgeable members who are open to new ideas and help move discussions forward in useful areas who do not shy away from contentious issues but keep their heads as they do so that issues can be fully explored and learning can then follow.

Add to that admins who are not afraid to step in and remind members of what good conduct is and we have a site worth belonging to.

If nothing else this one thread has shown the high quality of the members and the high quality of the admins.

It taught me something important as well, and I am grateful I was able to contribute to the discussion.

@Dr-GO
I understand and in the context of how you use the word buzz I agree, but a vibration of the lip double reed can also be called a buzz.

I think this is where the original issues sprang from.

If the lips move together and apart rapidly then the descriptive word for the sound that they create can be called a buzz.

What can we call it if not a buzz, a stuttering of air, a rasping, a flapping, a fluttering, a thrashing, a trembling, an oscillation, a quivering. When a student blows air into a mouthpiece and no sound comes out what do we do, give them a descriptive visual clue they can understand or simply say keep blowing, until they either get it or give up.

I have seen beginners blow and blow and blow and never get a sound, or they blow for 10 minutes and a raspy tone appears and then disappears and never reappears.

I would suggest that simply avoiding using the word buzz leaves us with "blow until your lips make a noise", and that is just plain unhelpful.

In Saxaphone circles buzzing of the mouthpiece is a well known and legitimate term and some players want to cultivate that sound and they use the word buzz to describe it, so why cant we use that term.

There are Sax pages named "That classic sax buzz"

And in describing Sax buzzing it is a legitimate way of playing and producing a Sax tone.

However we slice it a desirable musical tone in woodwind can be a buzz.

So in other instruments use of the word buzz is acceptable so why is any use of the word buzz unacceptable in Trumpet.

Maybe we should define the term buzz better rather than try to stop its use entirely.

I deeply suspect that because for many decades Trumpet teachers have been teaching students to buzz, the collective knowledge is that buzzing is good, and since some buzzing is known to be bad, I submit that we need to better define the term buzz and declare what is an acceptable buzz and what is not an acceptable buzz.

I am completely opposed to buzzing myself but I see buzzing as part of correct tone generation, and there are many advocates of buzzing possibly the majority of players and teachers see buzzing practice as essential.

In my case I see myself as buzzing as part of tone generation and I speak from experience here my tone has been complemented many times over the years as being very smooth so thinking of buzzing as part of tone generation does not have to mean we produce a bad tone.

If we cannot find a slightly better definition for teachers to use then they may just ignore the issue and continue to teach buzzing as they do now and students will continue to buzz badly and maybe students will make the same mistakes over and over again.

This perhaps is an opportunity to try to make a better future by describing to beginners better than at present how we generate tone and how buzzing fits in the picture.

I see two forms of buzz, the bad buzz that you correctly oppose as do I, and the buzzing that must happen when lips vibrate together.

When playing a low pedal for example what is sounded if not a buzz.

There must be a middle ground here.

I welcome your thoughts on this DR-GO.