Tabor wrote:TV screens, heck, sometimes I have trouble reading sheet music from the vibration.
Remember, that's why we held the basketball pep band music in our hands rather than use music stands like everyone else. I know that I couldn't read that stuff if it was farther away than arm's length.
Actually, it's not at all normal. You're being victimized by a secret alien plot. I would recommend you all stop playing tuba immediately, and ship your horns to me. I will store them in a EMI-shielded facility to protect you from further annoyance due to this phenomenon.
Contact me off line to make the necessary shipping arrangements!
Steve Inman wrote:Actually, it's not at all normal. You're being victimized by a secret alien plot. I would recommend you all stop playing tuba immediately, and ship your horns to me. I will store them in a EMI-shielded facility to protect you from further annoyance due to this phenomenon.
Contact me off line to make the necessary shipping arrangements!
I first noticed this happening one day in the band room, when I was for no reason walking around playing sousaphone. When I told everyone to look at the computer, they looked at me kinda funny. When I kept on telling them to look at it shake, they looked at me even funnier. When I wouldn't shutup, they thought I was on drugs. That monitor really was flipping me out until I figured it out.
Those LEDs were probably driven cheaply from the 60Hz power line. Since they would flash on for both the positive and the negative halves of the 60Hz, the actual flashing frequency is 120Hz, which is between B and Bb. Fluorescent lamps with older type (transformer) ballasts do the same thing. Of course, in Europe and many other places in the world, the power frequency is 50Hz, making for 100Hz flicker (between Ab and G).
Yes, it is a stroboscopic effect. Your head is vibrating, and that makes the LEDs appear to vibrate (relative to your head).
The problem as originally presented is caused by non-rhythmic interferences between the frequencies of the TV picture’s lines’ redrawing and the frequencies played on the tuba/euph/bone/horn or whatever mid-low brass.
As I have worn glasses for about the same portion of my life, as I have played brasses (no relations of causality I guess). And as I live in a climate fairly cold through winters, I have experienced a similar problem:
When I started playing after walking the dogs or riding the bike to my teaching jobs, my glasses made my nose itch.
The reason is simple: cold weather makes the blood vessels contract themselves to prevent a loss of body energy. Hence the face tissue stiffens.
The remedy is simple: take off your glasses and give your face a good rubbing thereby re-vitalizing the circulation.
Giving your forehead a good rubbing at the same time doesn’t hurt either. Even some tuba players happen to have an organ hidden behind the skull, which may benefit from an increased circulation.
Bad jokes aside: A nurse, mother of two of my students, took a probate course, when her sons complained having headaches.
She simply grabbed their hair and pulled it strongly all over the skull area.
Morale, if any: keep the blood and other body fluids going before you attempt to play any instrument.
