Contrabass Digest
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1998-07-24

 
list                           Fri, 24 Jul 1998           Volume 1 : Number 40

In this issue:
 

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Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 23:16:54 -0400
From: tyrthegreatandpowerful@juno.com (Michael J Effenberger)
To: list@contrabass.com
Subject: Re: Fwd:  Strange assortment of stuff FS

I would be interested in buying the fiberglass sous w/ bell.  Can you
tell me more about what's in poor condition?  Also, I live in NH.  I
would be happy to pay for the shipping, but I can't actually pick it up.

-Mike Effenberger
 

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Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 23:55:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: bj914@scn.org (John Micheal Bush)
To: list@contrabass.com
Subject: intelligent istruments

Did I read write when I heard someone mention intelligent electronic
istruments?  Like, AI?  I have joked with my drummer brother about the
drum machine replacing his kind, but could all of us worry about
psychotic programmers replacing our pride and joy with the latest in
technology?
        I have been keeping up on computer games, I know that modern
programming can work miracles, or at least beat me at chess and risk.
But has anyone ever trained his PC to improvise?  would it even be that
difficult?  It is all based on mathematical intervals.  Could a computer
improvise based on a number of rules concerning riffs and chord
substitution and progression, with the use of random number generators?
It would be a simple matter to be able to add the input of the rest of
the band to data used (not simple, but not extremely innovative at
least).  Any programmers out therre who can give an opinion?  Or cite an
example?
        Wow, the possibilities.... An artificial saxophonist might even
play in tune!  (Kidding, kidding... I play sax myself...)
        btw, I am a teenager as well (in response to earlier posting)
        John Bush

--
Imperial Space Cowboy, Beat Reader, and Aspiring Vegetarian.
btw, looking for a moderately priced sarrusophone.
Check out my jazz/funk/blues combo sometime!

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 11:22:29 -0400
From: jimkatz@JohnAbbott.qc.ca (Jim Katz)
To: <list@contrabass.com>
Subject: lelia's organ dissertation

>From: LeliaLoban@aol.com (Lelia Loban)
>In response to Gregg Bailey's comments about tone quality of various low-
>pitched instruments, compared with organ pipes:  It's not easy to build mouth-
>blown wind instruments that approximate what's available on a pipe organ.

etc.
 
 

Thanks for this. It will be one of the message I file and study. A few
years ago I saw an interesting use of old organ pipes. A church had gotten
an organ transplant, and the boy scout troop that inhabited its basement
weekly inherited a rank or two of flute pipes. The scoutmaster-organist did
some arranging, and in the next holiday parade, the troop marched and
played, one pipe per boy, and produced some creditable sounding music. They
did use the middle range of pipes rather than the very low or very high
ones. (As you have demonstrated, they couldn't blow the low ones, and no
kid wants to have the tiniest pipe when his buddies have two and three
footers.  Uncle Sigmund was right.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 19:03:23 EDT
From: <LeliaLoban@aol.com>
To: list@contrabass.com
Subject: bass organ pipes responsible for brainlock?

Thanks, Grant and Tristan and others who pointed out that I got it right the
first time and that organ pipe D# does equal bass sax F.  Well, it's nice to be
half right, anyway, even if it's the wrong half.  I mean, I've only been playing
piano since I was 4, and Bb clarinet since I was 9, and I'm only 50, so I haven't
really had much time to learn this music theory stuff....  How embarrassing.

Q:  What did the bass sax player get on her IQ test?
A:  Drool.

Revision of a drummer joke.  (That's it...maybe it happened because I also play
bodhran?  Or maybe crossing the eyes to look at stereograms crosses the
cerebral wiring and it _gets stuck that way_?  Or maybe low frequency
vibrations shake holes in the little gray cells?)

Bass-ackrawds,
aileL

P. S.  Grant, you asked about the diameter of the organ pipes I've
tried out by mouth.  The D# gedackt I wrote about is the largest I can
force to cough up a note (of sorts) on my own lung power.  It has a
rectangular bore, 3-13/16" x 2-15/16" on the inside, and does not taper.
The boards are pine, 1/2" thick.  They are not mortised or routed, and not
glued, but simply nailed together with small-headed nails, except for the
cap (the front of the block), which is screwed on with two big screws, as is
typical.  Holding the pipe steady and off the floor while blowing into it is
awkward (I'm 5'3" tall), even though the pipe weighs only about 7 lbs. (I
weighed it by stepping onto a scale with it, then weighing myself without the
pipe.  This electronic scale is accurate, but the digital readout shows only in
1/2 lb. increments.)  Subjectively, the pipe feels heavier, perhaps because it
has no thumb rest and no place to attach a support strap.  Pine vibrates
easily.  It throws off a lot of harmonic overtones.  Making a pipe such as this
out of "fat" hardwood to tolerate the condensation inside a mouth-blown
instrument would add greatly to the weight and would alter the resonance.
(Therefore I think Tristan makes a good point about the unfeasability of a
contrabass tarogota.)  According to my organ technicians' manuals, voicing
of wooden pipes of 8' pitch (meaning that the largest pipe on the rank is
C=8'=approx. 64 Hz--this pipe is the size of the D# on a 4' rank, but belongs
on an 8' rank because it is stopped) varies considerably, from as little as 1"
wind on some trackers (mechanical action organs) to 6" wind or even more
on some electropneumatic organs, with everything in between.  However,
since the mouth of this pipe is not nicked, I believe it came from a tracker
voiced on comparatively low wind.  An unnicked wooden diapason will buzz
on high wind.

Small differences in construction can mean big differences in performance.  I
also own a baroque diapason (probably a stopped diapason with the stopper
missing) made of spruce.  Superficially, it seems very similar to the 19th c. pipe
described above and in my previous post, except that the baroque pipe has a
longer, skinnier footing. The baroque pipe (counting the block but not
counting the footing) has a 39-1/2" speaking length, with a rectangular bore, is
also nailed together without joinery, with a cap installed with two big screws,
and plays more or less the orchestra E half a tone above the 19th c. pipe's
nominal orchestra D# without the stopper.  The pipes are constructed
similarly, but the baroque pipe has a narrower bore, measuring 3" x 1-9/16" on
the inside.  The boards are about 3/8" thick (the thickness varies a bit and the
wood has warped some).  Unlike the tightly-grained pine of the 19th c. pipe,
the spruce of the baroque pipe is wide-grained, like the (much thinner) belly of
a cello.  Given its age, the pipe definitely came from a tracker, voiced on low
wind.  It is very dried-out, weighs only about 4 lbs., is crunched a bit at the top
from an extremely tight tuning collar (missing) and has two 8" slight parallel
splits, vertically up the middle of the back board (along the grain of the wood),
characteristic of a pipe on an all-mechanical organ that has been converted to
an electric bellows system with much higher wind pressure.  (This treatment,
common in the early 20th c., ruined a lot of good organ pipes.)  Now the odd
thing is that this baroque pipe, though nearly the same pitch and constructed
similarly to the 19th c. pipe (I haven't taken off the caps to compare the insides
of the blocks), and damaged in such a way that it leaks air, is much easier to
blow, though certainly not easy enough for practicality as a mouth-blown
instrument.  I still can get only about 2 seconds of tone out of it, but it's a real
note, not just a blatting noise.  Voiced on an electric air compressor, the
baroque pipe, despite its narrower bore, has a darker, more "booming" tone
than the 19th c. pipe.  The baroque pipe also has that odd (and to my thinking,
very attractive) wall-rattling quality, which the 19th c. pipe does not have.

Measuring things is so much easier than thinking....
Lelia

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 16:12:42 -0700
From: Grant Green <gdgreen@contrabass.com>
To: list@contrabass.com
Subject: WWandBW update

Hi,

Woodwind & Brasswind just updated their 2nd hand and "scratch/dent" lists.
Of note:
 

and a number of tubas, euphoniums, baritones, and other horns.

Has anyone tried an Amati contrabassoon?

Grant
 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant D. Green                  gdgreen@contrabass.com
www.contrabass.com     Just filling in on sarrusophone
Contrabass email list:             list@contrabass.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 16:49:04 -0700
From: Grant Green <gdgreen@contrabass.com>
To: list@contrabass.com
Subject: Wichita & Charles Fail updates

While I'm at it,

Wichita Band Ins. (http://www.wichitaband.com) is now listing a Selmer EEb
contra for $1095 (apparently about 6 months old).  As they list the "new"
price as $2325, I suspect that this is a Selmer USA instrument (aka Bundy).

Charles Fail Music (http://www.charlesfail.com) now has a Leblanc EEb
contralto (straight, to low Eb) for $2000, and a Selmer USA BBb contrabass
to low Eb for $1200 (this is a resonite instrument).

Osmun Music (http://www.osmun.com) is now listing a 1924 brass Conn
sousaphone (3v) for $850.

Music Treasures (http://www.flnet.com/~musicxdr/woowindi.htm) is listing a
Noblet *metal* Eb clarinet for $375.00.  OK, a little too high to be
relevant, but still a curious instrument...

Enjoy!

Grant
 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant D. Green                  gdgreen@contrabass.com
www.contrabass.com     Just filling in on sarrusophone
Contrabass email list:             list@contrabass.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 17:06:33 -0700
From: Grant Green <gdgreen@contrabass.com>
To: list@contrabass.com
Subject: Re: bass organ pipes responsible for brainlock?

At 07:03 PM 7/24/98 EDT, Lelia wrote:
>P. S.  Grant, you asked about the diameter of the organ pipes I've
>tried out by mouth.  The D# gedackt I wrote about is the largest I can
>force to cough up a note (of sorts) on my own lung power.  It has a
>rectangular bore, 3-13/16" x 2-15/16" on the inside, and does not taper.
>The boards are pine, 1/2" thick.  They are not mortised or routed, and not
>glued, but simply nailed together with small-headed nails, except for the
>cap (the front of the block), which is screwed on with two big screws, as is
>typical.  Holding the pipe steady and off the floor while blowing into it is
***
>1/2 lb. increments.)  Subjectively, the pipe feels heavier, perhaps because it
>has no thumb rest and no place to attach a support strap.  Pine vibrates
>easily.  It throws off a lot of harmonic overtones.  Making a pipe such as this
>out of "fat" hardwood to tolerate the condensation inside a mouth-blown
>instrument would add greatly to the weight and would alter the resonance.
>(Therefore I think Tristan makes a good point about the unfeasability of a
>contrabass tarogota.)

Actually, this reminds me of the Paetzold contrabass and subcontrabass
recorders, which also have rectangular bores, and are asserted to be based
on organ pipe designs.  They're made to rest on the floor, or on a peg...
The "budget" model is made from varnished plywood.  See
http://www.e-m-s.com/recorder/paetzold.htm for a picture.  The Early Music
Shop (Bradford, UK) has the F subcontrabass for £1,556.25, and the sub
*sub* contrabass in CC for £2,456.25 (about US$2,564.40 and US$4,047.40,
respectively).  These enormous recorders reach the F below the bass clef,
and the C below the bass clef, respectively (actually quite low for a
recorder, considering that the soprano recorder has a range equivalent to
the piccolo).

Now I'm imagining a wooden contrabass taragato, with a square bore...  ;-)

Grant

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 18:01:00 -0700
From: Grant Green <gdgreen@contrabass.com>
To: list@contrabass.com
Subject: Contrabass Trombone

Could be another long digest today....

Just ran across another contrabass trombone page, this by Dick Tyack,
Bass/Contrabass Trombone with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
(http://www.nthwood.demon.co.uk/bts/contra.htm).  The image at the top
appears to be the "conventional" contrabass trombone in BBb.  Mr. Tyack,
however, apparently plays an EEb contrabass trombone, specially built to
his design, with a doubled slide the length of an alto trombone slide.
There's an image of it farther down his page.

Enjoy!

Grant
 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant D. Green                  gdgreen@contrabass.com
www.contrabass.com     Just filling in on sarrusophone
Contrabass email list:             list@contrabass.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

------------------------------

End of list V1 #40
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