The Lowest Note

[CJ Krause]

***

[Phil Dawson]

On a good day I can play the A below double pedal C (two octaves below the C two ledger lines below the staff.) Encounters II calls for the double pedal C. I frequently use pedal F and pedal G on final chords in an orchestral setting with the bass bone also going down an octave. This really gives the chord a lot more color and most conductors that I have played under really like that. You have to be able to play lower than what you need so that the higher notes are clean. Yes a pedal F can be clean.
Phil

[tubeast]

"at least 30 or 40 Db's (most of which are marked ff-ffff)"

Honestly, people, sometimes I´m not too sure what composers have in mind when they put these signs in the score.
To me, a jump to the next louder dynamics means a noticeable increase in volume. A repetition of that mark will express how many times to multiply that dynamic concept.
So, pp will be half as loud as p, fff will be three times the volume of f. (Correct me if I´m wrong)

Now, I want to hear somebody play real soft "Giant Db-s" as mentioned above, grow significantly louder to a p, louder still to mp and so on until they reach quadruple forte.
Now vicious me sneaks up and adds another two f-marks. What do you do? Use a mic and an amplifier ? Get a quick coupling attached to your throat and a compressor to supply that extra air ?
I consider myself a tubist with reasonable amounts of breathing strength and lung capacity. In those ranges, the loudest I can get is maybe mf.

Are there standards (dB-wise) as to what IS a note played at ffff compared to mf ?

[Steve Marcus]

Don't blame Corigliano. Tchaikovsky and Verdi wrote those quadruple and quintuple dynamic markings long ago.

[Chuck(G)]

See:

http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory1.htm

(about the middle of the page for Helmholtz and Scientific pitch notation.) I prefer scientific noation because (1) it lets me talk to MIDI and electronic music folks without explaining what I mean (e.g what does c4, c'''', or c iv mean?). (2) calculation of octave distance is straightforward. (3) Case is immaterial (c4 is the same as C4).

C0 is Robert's CCCC (a little less cumbersome, don't you think?). At 16 Hz, I would argue that C0 is hardly a musical tone at all. Consider that at crochet=120, it's the same frequency as is douible-donguing 32nd notes.

[Kevin Hendrick]

... What the heck is an AAA anyhow?

There seems to be a plethora of possibilities:

http://travel.aaa.com/

http://www.aaanet.org/

http://www.adr.org/

http://aaahq.org/index.cfm

http://www.aaa.asn.au/

http://www.aaa-apm.org/

http://advertising.utexas.edu/AAA/

... AAAaaahhhhh!!!

[Chuck(G)]

Chuck(G): Many thanks for the URL. I've added it to my bookmarks.

Barring pictures, scientific notation is my choice, too. All of my scoring software uses it.

The chapel at the USMA has, or at least it did 45 years ago, a 64' pipe. That would be ~8 Hz. I suppose it would be CCCCC in Helmholtz notation. But what in scientific? C(-1)?

Inasmuch as any frequency below the range of human hearing could be called a "note"; I suppose I would call it C-1.

Would you know if the 64' voice on the Academy instrument a flue stop or was it an oscillating-mass stop, like a Diaphone? 64' flue stops are exceedingly rare.

[me]

a good number of people on this topic have mentioned that they can play, or have used in reference "double pedal C" i'm almost positive they dont mean a double pedal C. because that would be the same as the 64' organ pipe. a better phrase to use would probably be "pedal C" because it's a half step above pedal B. also adding to the list of pieces that use incredibly low notes. "myaku" by djube has a notated pedal C.

[Phil Dawson]

The double pedal C that I am playing is an octave below pedal C or or 2 octaves below the C two lines below the staff. The frequency is at about 16Hz or so. This is not just a claim. Bobo produces it on Kraft's "Encounters II" on one of his recordings and this is a usable note although not called for very often. It also takes a very good sound system to reproduce it. I have found that just because I can't play into the double high c register of the trumpet like Sam Pilafian can doesn't mean that it can't be done. Practice, practice, practice.
Phil

[ThomasDodd]

a good number of people on this topic have mentioned that they can play, or have used in reference "double pedal C" i'm almost positive they dont mean a double pedal C. because that would be the same as the 64' organ pipe. a better phrase to use would probably be "pedal C" .

The way I read the notation page linked earlier, double pedal is appropriate, since the C, 2 lines below the bass cleff staf is the start of the "pedal" range.

[tubarnak]

Maybe this link could help... I've been trying to find sound samples but no results.

http://www.contrabass.com/pages/frequency.html

[Phil Dawson]

Once you have the samples what are you going to play them on/with. If you find some let me know as I do have some friends with 24-inch woofers in their very fancy music systems. Good Luck, Phil

[Chuck(G)]

well thats all very good and well but then how does roger bobo get his monstor C on his DD tuba in encounters 2....????
its very possible to tune the lip slaps in your mouthpiece (lacking a bettor discription) or even your tounge to a pitch.
and on my FF tuba i can get very clear with great pitch notes below the fundamental (3 F's below middel C) down to 4 BBb's below middel c which im sure mose FF players here can easily as well.

What no one has mentioned thus far is that no one really "hears" notes this low, nor does our instrument produce them with any amount of amplitude.

Like the aforementioned 64' resultant organ stop, what your audience hears on that "CCCC" is the upper harmonics of the note, not the note itself, whose actual energy, coupled with the sharp dropoff in sensitivity of the ear at low frequencies would be all but inaudible.

[TexTuba]

well thats all very good and well but then how does roger bobo get his monstor C on his DD tuba in encounters 2....????

BECAUSE HE'S ROGER BOBO!!!!



Ralph

[Mark]

Absolutely true story. I played a really low note for a small group of non-brass players and one of them remarked: "That just sounds like your lips are flapping".

[Bill Troiano]

I actually won a $20.00 bet with a contra bassoon player, back in the early 1970's. She told me that she could play lower than I could and I bet her that she couldn't. The trick is to let the contra bassoon play first. She played a note lower than my pedal CC (maybe a low A with the extension). It just sounded like a pulse or vibration. So, employing the tongue slapping technique that Roger Bobo describes, I just slapped my tongue slower than the pulse of her lowest note. She bought it and I won $20.00. Try it sometime on your favorite contra bassoon player.

[TexTuba]

Is this tongue slapping trick like flutter tounging but just not as fast?








Ralph

[The Jackson]

......bbbbbvvvv......bbbbbvvvv.....

[TUbajohn20J]

I can almost get down to a double peddle B flat (yes the B flat below peddle B flat). I can play the C but when i let the valves up for B flat it skips up a partial

[tubatom91]

about Gb 0. A little lower (if you REALLY consider those "notes").