Contrabass Digest

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1998-08-26

 
list                           Wed, 26 Aug 1998           Volume 1 : Number 70

In this issue:
 

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Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 22:11:03 EDT
From: <CoolStu67@aol.com>
To: list@contrabass.com
Subject: Future contraist

Hello, I've been on this list for awhile, and Grant knows me from IM sessions
on AOL. Finally, after being a bassist, I will be playing a contra in the high
school band after marching season! Today I asked my director about it and he
said he did have a contra (alto, not bass :( ) and he would love for me to
play it. And, by the end of this week I will be bringing it home. Just one
question: will Vandoren "Contra basse" reeds work? I haven't seen contralto
reeds. And one more, I play comfortably on a 2 1/2 on the bass clarinet. Will
a 2 or 3 work good for me on the contra?
 

Stuart
CoolStu67 on AOL

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Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 16:55:44 EDT
From: <LeliaLoban@aol.com>
To: list@contrabass.com
Subject: Dept. of Loose Ends...sub-woofer hearing

Bonedaddy asked:
>>Didn't Philip Neuman play an alphorn that was even longer? Was that the
world's largest alphorn that he had a special trailer for his car to carry it?
I seem to remember something about having to rest the bell end in the center
aisle for a concert.>>

This was the horn that got me started on that "sub-woofer hearing" thread
awhile ago.  I think Philip Neuman said that when fully assembled, this
alphorn was about 128 ft. long, or probably about 3.5 Hz, given that a little
bit of the horn where it flares out at the bell wouldn't "speak".  There are
actually two separate issues when considering whether or not people can hear
the foundation tone of a note that low.  We've been talking about the absolute
ability to hear or not to hear, but pitch discrimination is another matter.
Pitch discrimination has nothing to do with so-called "perfect pitch," which
is anything but "perfect," IMHO.  (Digression: It would be more correct, I
think, to call this type of pitch perception INFLEXIBLE pitch, permanently set
at a=440 Hz or whatever an individual thus benighted becomes fixated upon at a
tender age.  For someone who wants to play antique instruments, surely
"perfect" pitch is more of a curse than a blessing.  Excellent RELATIVE pitch
is a lot more useful.)  At any rate, pitch discrimination simply refers to the
ability to discern that one note is higher or lower in pitch than another
note.  The same hearing eggspurts in the medical community who believe that
the average person can't hear below 20 Hz also say that average people can't
discriminate pitch below 42.6 Hz.  I doubt that any of us would bother
subscribing to this list or playing our favorite woofers if we couldn't
discriminate pitch below that level.  That doesn't even take us to the bottom
of a piano keyboard!  So we're above average in that department, or I guess I
should say we're below average.  (At least two dozen Hz below!)

Jim Katz asked,
>> Just how long a pipe can a person blow?>>

It may not be possible to answer that question.  Too many variables.  No
matter what wind instrument we play, we're not simply blowing through it, as
if we wanted to blow out a candle at the other end of the pipe.  I could never
blow out a candle through my bass sax, even if I removed the mouthpiece, but I
can generate more than enough wind to make *noise* on it.  (Funny thing about
that bass:  It has the occult power of sucking up money like a vaccuum
cleaner, no matter how hard I blow into it in the other direction--and I can't
Hoover the money back out, either, as it seems to disappear into a mysterious
rift in the space-time continuum that no doubt has something important to do
with pitch, resonance, etc..)  In fact, the lowest notes on my bass sax, the
notes that vibrate the longest column of air inside the pipe, require less air
than *any* part of the range of my tenor sax, a pipe only half as long, made
by the same company (C. G. Conn) in the same year (1926), in the same family,
but shaped differently.

All the human blast-bag needs to do is cause the column of air inside the pipe
to vibrate.  That vibrating column of air also moves through the pipe linearly
from mouthpiece to bell, and that's why you can feel some air coming out at
the bell end, but the column as a whole doesn't move linearly with anywhere
near the speed or power generated by the blower, as you can easily confirm by
having someone feel the force of your breath with a hand in front of your
mouth (no instrument), then hold a hand at the bell on a long straight or
curved-bell instrument while you blow through the pipe with approximately the
same force.  Oddly enough, this even happens if you blow hard into a straight
pipe like a soprano clarinet (with all the keys closed) that's pointing toward
the ground.  Now, common sense tells me that in earth gravity, a stream of air
molecules blown out of a mouth, like a stream of marbles dropped out of a
hand, ought to speed up until it reaches terminal velocity and then maintain
its speed as it hurls toward the earth.  Admittedly, common sense and I are
not close friends, so I'll just assume that, despite gravity and tight new key
pads that keep the air from wriggling out through the tone holes, a stream of
air gets weaker after it leaves the mouth because the mouth-air molecules only
have time to give the outside-air that was already in the horn a little push,
before my swiftly-moving mouth-air molecules disappear into the same space-
time anomaly that sucks up money...unless one of the more engineering-minded
amongst us explains otherwise with some bizarre reference to air resistance or
some other clearly science-fictional concept that's got mouth-air fighting
outside-air and somehow managing to lose, even though I'm giving my air a big
push with my lungs, while the outside air seems perfectly still.  Although,
come to think of it, the air around here does seem tough enough to smash my
face by the end of August, and tastes the way the inside of an old sax case
smells...so clearly there's some sort of sinister force, with very bad
halitosis, supplying hidden power behind the outside-air; and therefore it
might be better just to hold my breath and sneak away quietly, before whatever
it is notices me and decides to deploy its teeth, which may be excessively
large, sharp ones if the halitosis comes from eating too much meat....

Anyhow, whether it's easy or difficult to make a column of air vibrate in such
a way as to produce sound depends on the configuration of the pipe, the
mouthpiece and the reed if any, and on their relationship to each other, which
may or may not be cordial.  (For instance, my Bb soprano clarinet and C tenor
recorder are almost exactly the same length.  However, because of the reed and
the shape of the beak, the clarinet requires far more air than the recorder.
Also, because of something weird about the shape of the clarinet that never
made a damn bit of sense to me, the clarinet blows an octave below the length
of the pipe, as if it were a stopped pipe, even though any fool...I, at any
rate...can look through it as if it were a spyglass and see that it ISN'T a
stopped pipe...oh, never mind that.)  The variations in the length-mouthpiece-
shape-reed etc. ratios probably aren't literally infinite, but for practical
purposes, they might as well be infinite.  Therefore I'll be surprised if
anyone can answer Jim Katz's question about the maximum possible length of a
human-powered wind instrument.

De profundo lacu,
Lelia
LeliaLoban@aol.com

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

Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 18:38:21 EDT
From: <CoolStu67@aol.com>
To: list@contrabass.com
Subject: Bass clarinet mouthpiece question

I know this isn't a contrabass question, but this is only group for which I'm
confident of a reply... Yesterday I brought home a Vandoren B45 mouthpiece
that my band director thought was a Eb contra mouthpiece. First question, this
"contra" mouthpiece fit in my bass neck... is this normal or was my director
incorrect? Second, when I played on it, I sounded incredible! Absoultely *no*
airy sound in the low register, which is a big difference! :) Should I buy a
new B45(I wouldn't be able to keep it since it's the schools) or is there
comething better sounding? I use Vandoren 2 1/2s, by the way.

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

Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 19:53:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: Philip Neuman <neuman@up.edu>
To: Contrabass-list <list@contrabass.com>
Subject: Re: list V1 #69

Yes, we played the world's largest alphorn in concert in Portland a few
years ago.  We only had room in the church for 80 of its total of 154
feet, but it is adjustable since it comes apart in 6 foot sections.  In
its 80 foot version, all but the final (mouthpiece end) section were
conical.  It seemed to be pitched in Ab with the 16th partial being AAAb.
The instrument was made by Peter Wutherich of Boise.

Philip Neuman

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

Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 18:35:03 -0700
From: Grant Green <gdgreen@contrabass.com>
To: list@contrabass.com
Subject: Re: Bass clarinet mouthpiece question

At 06:38 PM 8/26/98 EDT, you wrote:
>I know this isn't a contrabass question, but this is only group for which I'm
>confident of a reply... Yesterday I brought home a Vandoren B45 mouthpiece
>that my band director thought was a Eb contra mouthpiece. First question,
this
>"contra" mouthpiece fit in my bass neck... is this normal or was my director
>incorrect? Second, when I played on it, I sounded incredible! Absoultely *no*
>airy sound in the low register, which is a big difference! :) Should I buy a
>new B45(I wouldn't be able to keep it since it's the schools) or is there
>comething better sounding? I use Vandoren 2 1/2s, by the way.

I've just started playing contralto (picked up one *really* cheap at an
auction), and it strikes me that the mpc is about the size of a bass
clarinet mpc.  If the horn plays with good intonation with that mpc,
there's really no reason not to use it.  I'd be concerned that if the
internal volume of the mpc isn't large enough for the horn (for whatever
volume mpc it was designed for), the instrument won't play with a
consistent scale.  Sit down with a tuner, and see if the notes play in tune
(or at least as well as with the old mpc).  If it works, great!

Grant
 

Grant Green
gdgreen@contrabass.com
http://www.contrabass.com
Just filling in on sarrusophone.......

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End of list V1 #70
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