TubeNet

harold wrote:1. Replacing the valve caps on your axe with extra heavy duty ones will do something other than make your horn heavier.

Well... I did glue weights on the back of the valve caps of my mira 186. It did:
- improve response in the low register (maybe because you can hear it better, less sound displacement)
- make slotting easyer
- lessen the overtones
- held tone better together at high volume
- projected less......

Then I took them off and liked it better without them. They do have an effect other than making it heavier. I experience the same effect when I put a counterweight on my trombone.

jszkutko wrote:Swinging a dead cat at midnight upon a full moon wil.....



Oops, wrong forum!!

Maybe not. Many of us are really cool cats! LOL

7. Filling your horn with helium will make you play really high. For a short time.

windshieldbug wrote:7. Filling your horn with helium will make you play really high. For a short time.

http://www.chisham.com/tips/bbs/may2002 ... 95976.html neat!

TubaRay wrote:

jszkutko wrote:Swinging a dead cat at midnight upon a full moon wil.....



Oops, wrong forum!!

Maybe not. Many of us are really cool cats! LOL

Perhaps he meant to write: "Swinging WITH cats..."

funkcicle wrote:

windshieldbug wrote:7. Filling your horn with helium will make you play really high. For a short time.

http://www.chisham.com/tips/bbs/may2002 ... 95976.html neat!

Well, I've been on for such a short time I shoulda figured that no matter what I came up with, someone had already tried it...

A not-so-tactful young lady in her junior year of high school:

"Only dweebs play Eb tubas."

That, of course, was before she was acquainted with the likes of Pat Sheridan...

bloke wrote:4. Practice makes perfect.

My teacher always added to it, saying "PERFECT Practice makes perfect".

codytuba wrote:Yeah, isn't there a trumpet guy who freezes horns to relieve stress in the manufacturing process? It's not Bob Reeves of valve pad fame, but someone else. It's supposed to free up the horn a little bit and allow it to resonate more...? I wonder if this procedure might benifit tubas as well!?!

Some friends of mine had this procedure done to their tubas and euphonium last summer. I never got a clear answer if it helped any.

Will wrote:

bloke wrote:4. Practice makes perfect.

My teacher always added to it, saying "PERFECT Practice makes perfect"..

Or, put another way "Practice makes permanent".

harold wrote:...urban legends:

A few that were conspicuously missed:

1. Replacing the valve caps on your axe with extra heavy duty ones will do something other than make your horn heavier.

2. A well regarded repair guy on this board has stated that filling the air pocket in the guard mouldings and the guard wire will darken the sound on a horn.

3. Cryonics does something other than lighten your wallet.

Your item #1 was tested in the Rick Denney Mythbuster lab several years ago, and this myth was not at all busted. The heavy caps on the rotary tuba made a significant and noticeable difference, when tested by two players and three listeners. The instrument was a little less flexible with slightly better slotting. The change was thought to be an improvement by one player (me), and not an improvement by the other player (TubaRay). We both agreed that it helped me and hindered him. The test mule was a Miraphone 186, and the weights were Monsterweights.

From the point of view of science, adding significant mass to the instrument can indeed significantly affect the resonance of the brass, and the resonance of the brass can indeed affect the sound, but both are subtle. I doubt anyone would be able to hear a difference in the tone color, but there was a difference in the attacks as a result of the change in responsiveness of the instrument. More significantly, adding mass changes the frequency and magnitude of vibration of the instrument as felt thorugh the hands and as a sound radiator close to the player's ear. Those effects are real and have an effect on the player's sense of what is being played.

The Rick Denney Mythbuster Lab has also tested the effect of filling guard molding with solder. I performed that test on my project tuba, and did not notice much difference on that instrument. But it's the same issue of adding mass to the instrument. If you add mass to, say, the pendulum of a clock, you won't change it's period (unless you change the length to the center of gravity), but you will significantly affect both the impulse required to keep it swinging and the arc of the swing.

The idea behind cryogenic freezing is that it relieves the internal stresses of the instrument that were introduced when the parts were worked. The Rick Denney Mythbuster Lab hasn't tested that notion, and thus skepticism abounds. But let me ask this: Do you think baking an aluminum bicycle frame at 350 degrees for 15 hours after it is welded will significantly change the fatique durability of the metal? Aluminum has a melting point of what, 1400 degrees? How could 350 degrees be hot enough to relieve stresses? But it is.

Here's a myth for you: Tuba harmonics work just like a straight organ pipe.

Rick "not queueing his tuba up for cryogenic treatment, and think it's too subtle an effect to actually sense, but not dismissing it out of hand, either" Denney

Henry wrote:That there are effects is - I believe- undeniable. That they are major or neccesarily favorable is wide open, subjective, and subject to sample to sample variation.

I don't think that damping brass with your hands necessarily kills off all vibrations within the brass. In fact, I know it doesn't. And since brass, like all solid metals below yield strength, is quite elastic, it will ring quite readily if you find a resonant mode, even one that is attenuated. After all, that is a clang you hear when you rap the bell, not a thud.

My point in bringing up the pendulum was to demonstrate that mass has an effect on vibration. Simple mass increases the required excitation force. Integral mass also increases stiffness, and that increases the resonance peaks in the impedance curve. Since the vibration of the air within the brass is affected not only by the excitation from the lips, but also by the damping effect of the brass and the design of the tuba, it goes too far to say that it's a myth that adding mass here or there will make an improvement.

There are many effects of instrument design firmly outside the realm of myth and lore that are subjective, variable, and subtle. Some are even controversial. But music is all about subtlety, and musical performance is all about subjectivity. Thus, I don't think those three qualities can be used in support of any given effect being a myth.

A myth, as used in this context, is something that is repeated as objective truth when it has no basis in objective truth. At least three of your four examples fail in that definition.

If you want to say that they pale in signficance compare to other effects or that they are unimportant compared to more important effects, then fine. I might even agree with you.

Rick "who dislikes black-and-white statements about physical things that are, at best, poorly understood" Denney

iibagod wrote:you have to add a lot of pounds to transpose a trumpet player into a tuba player.

Well, how about this puzzler then:
How many pounds do you have to add to change a fiddle player into a tuba player?

MA

MaryAnn wrote:Well, how about this puzzler then:
How many pounds do you have to add to change a fiddle player into a tuba player?

Not many, but they have to be placed strategically...

Rick Denney wrote:Here's a myth for you: Tuba harmonics work just like a straight organ pipe.

Golly Rick, I don't think I've ever even seen a tuba harmonica--got a picture of one?

harold wrote:This in essence is the same problem with the weighted valve caps. If it were just a matter of adding mass, there would be guys adding assorted tire and fishing weights to their horns to make them better.

The myth is that it will sound better with the extra weight.

I think I can claim that it will sound different. For some it's an improvement and for others it's not.

Have you tried it???

Chuck(G) wrote:

Rick Denney wrote:Here's a myth for you: Tuba harmonics work just like a straight organ pipe.

Golly Rick, I don't think I've ever even seen a tuba harmonica--got a picture of one?

not quite the same but: http://www.coast2coastmusic.com/orchestral/bass.shtml

Tuba Urban Legend #27:

Adding weight to your horn will make it play very flat

windshieldbug wrote:Tuba Urban Legend #27:

Adding weight to your horn will make it play very flat

I always thought that was true. Say it ain't so!