Your lowest of low notes

[Dutchtown Sousa]

So I have been working on hitting my lowest of low "notes" (more of a helicopter sound) and though I have no idea what note it is, have gotten down to an approximately 3-4 lip vibrations per second, mostly dependent on increasing resistance in the tuba by pressing all 4 valves and/or pulling all of the slides out all of the way. I sort of suspect if I had more valves (more pipe length) I could get it even lower if i could push enough air through the horn. Since there is really no musical application for it but I find it sort of interesting, I just wanted to know what the lowest you have been able to do has been, and what tuba you did it on.

[Dutchtown Sousa]

Dutch,
First thing to argue about is physics, then after I dismiss that by reminding all the engineer types about the power of human will,
we argue about what tuba to use. I use a CC because that's all I own. Anyway it gets to an EEEb with four valves down and a good input.
Please remember that most tubas are non compensating and can't play in tune after the forth valve is in play. So a 4 valve CC can only play Eb naturally.
I am amusing that your way past the seventh ledger line. A guy on this board called "tuban" will give $100.00 if you can record a double peddle C
This would be a false tone like playing middle of the staff c with all four valves (which you can do).
Here is my you tube attempt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-ZhStGT4lE" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

Well $100 would be nice. Did you ever get your $20? Obviously getting down that low you really can't tell what the note is by ear.

[GC]

I think Tuben's bet was about hitting double pedal C on a CC tuba. He didn't believe it was possible acoustically to hit a note an octave below the fundamental.

[DWEldred92]

Has anyone ever hit a double pedal on tuba? I play on a BBb so a Double pedal BBb.

[Dutchtown Sousa]

In my opinion, aside from many other factors, the main reason to be suspicious of various "double pedal X" claims, is that these notes are below the human range of hearing.

I do not count brief bursts of higher frequency tones, repeated at intervals of several times per second, as "double pedal" anything.

Others may not share this opinion.

DG

That is a valid observation as I believe the human range of hearing only goes down to somewhere around 20Hz while my "note" (sort of loosely used there) would be 3-4Hz if you were to go by the lips per second as waves per second which is far below the lowest a person could hear. It's more of 3-4 hertz if you were to go by how many times per second the lips pushed air through the horn, similar to how many times a light goes on and off in a second.

I think Tuben's bet was about hitting double pedal C on a CC tuba. He didn't believe it was possible acoustically to hit a note an octave below the fundamental.

Well obviously I am using BBb tuba for this (Miraphone 186-4U) but I would have to say it is possible to hit it but it would not be discernible as a BBBBb (double pedal, hoping I am using the correct name) as opposed to anything else down there. You can tell the difference between pressing 1st valve and playing vs pressing 2nd valve and playing but nobody would be able to tell you by ear "Wow that is a nice CCCC. Great job on keeping it in tune." So acoustically no you wouldn't be able to tell but if you were able to tell how many times your lips vibrated per second on say the BBBb (pedal), the BBb, and the Bb (tuning Bb) and figured out if there was a constant difference in the number of times the lip vibrated per second then you might be able to determine what constitutes a BBBBb.

[Mark]

That is a valid observation as I believe the human range of hearing only goes down to somewhere around 20Hz while my "note" (sort of loosely used there) would be 3-4Hz if you were to go by the lips per second as waves per second which is far below the lowest a person could hear. It's more of 3-4 hertz if you were to go by how many times per second the lips pushed air through the horn, similar to how many times a light goes on and off in a second.

So, how do you know you are playing the note if you can't hear it. And, if you can hear it, how can it only be 3 or 4 hz?

[Dutchtown Sousa]

That is a valid observation as I believe the human range of hearing only goes down to somewhere around 20Hz while my "note" (sort of loosely used there) would be 3-4Hz if you were to go by the lips per second as waves per second which is far below the lowest a person could hear. It's more of 3-4 hertz if you were to go by how many times per second the lips pushed air through the horn, similar to how many times a light goes on and off in a second.

So, how do you know you are playing the note if you can't hear it. And, if you can hear it, how can it only be 3 or 4 hz?

Sorry for the confusion. I mean it would be at 3-4Hz IF hertz meant lip vibrations per second (hertz means cycles per second). In hertz as a measure of the pitch of a sound (sound waves per second) then it would be much higher than that.

[Z-Tuba Dude]

I think that the "double pedal" Bb would be somewhere around 14.5 vibrations per second, and the C would be about 16.3 Hz.

[Dutchtown Sousa]

I think that the "double pedal" Bb would be somewhere around 14.5 vibrations per second, and the C would be about 16.3 Hz.

If that is so then I wonder what I have been hitting.

[Chris Olka]

On a 5 valve cc tuba with York style valve slides that you can pull out far enough it's playable. Played it, heard it, no problems. I use the all five with slides pulled for the octave above as well. The resistance helps tremendously for softly playing the note in spots like Bruckner 4 chorale and Prokofiev 3. This fingering puts the tuba in CCC. It helps to have the octave above being played as well for intonation purposes but after having developed enough facility in that register you can begin to discern pitch on these notes. Played it a few times with a tuba or bass trombone the octave above and its fun though not the most effective note. The 'd' a whole step above is about as low as anyone I know can get any real traction on for dynamic.
Cheers!

[GC]

Chris,

Have you ever tried playing the lowest C with all the valves and then releasing them while still blowing to see if you can maintain the pitch open?

[Chris Olka]

I've tried it and it doesn't work well. It's a false tone. Jake used to call them privileged notes. I can do it on F tuba for a double pedal F. I have to use first valve though. On CC I use first valve but can't really get any pitch out of it on the CCC. They are usable notes (the corollary notes that is) on f tuba but not so much on CC. At least thats been my experience. False tones on CC the octave up work great.
My 2 cents FWIW.

[Kevin Hendrick]

What happens when the tempo and the duration of a note defines a pitch which does not have enough time to resonate with at least two vibrations?

Said malfluence of conditions is frequently described as "pitched up" ...