I had an enlightening experience yesterday. I went along to an orchestral rehearsal with my Neptune. On arrival I found out I had made a mistake reading the schedule as I was not required until the second half. As the rehearsal venue is a large school with lots of other rooms, I decided I would find a spare space and make use of the time doing some own practice. I found a nice big room with high ceiling.
When I started playing I could hardly believe the difference in sound I was hearing from the Neptune - it sounded so much fuller and richer than at home with wonderful reverberations - I felt like I was listening to someone better than me playing
I have not experienced such a huge tonal difference practicing with smaller tubas in small and large rooms. So I ask the technical wizards on this forum - Why does the size of practice room make so much more difference playing a 6/4 than a smaller tuba?
Jonathan "who is thinking a large room is essential to properly play test a BAT"
My previous home was all wood floors and a 14 foot ceiling. It was probably the most rewarding place to practice! It made you sound like a completely different player. Very fun!
I would LOVE to be able to HAVE to practice in a hall. But it isn't exactly practical, because getting that kind of practice space is not achieveable on a regular basis. Otherwise...I would DEFINETELY!
There are alternatives. In New York, I used to pay a church $100 a month to let me honk in their chapel for an hour a day. They were happy, I was happy.
i get the similar effect with my PT20. i LOVE playing in a large hall or in a big room but it isn't what im going for when practicing. since we have practice rooms i use them. they're the most dead space i can find and i like it for practicing (especially when recording a practice session. because of the lack of resonance, there is nothing to hide behind. i figure, if i can sound good in one of those rooms i'll sound fantastic in a hall. it definitely helps.
Casey "thinks more musicians at my school should use the practice rooms" Tucker
Physics of sound waves. The larger the room, the more space there is for the fundamental to develop, hence the richer sound. Reverberation helps by reinforcing the tone as it "comes back to you" in the room.
If the room is too small, there simply is not enough linear space for the fundamental to develop. For example, pedal CC is roughly 30 Hz. Sound travels at @ 1100 fps at average temperature and elevation. So the fundamental wave is about 37 feet long, and you need at least little more than half of that in at least one direction for the wave to form, reflect, and complete its cycle so it is actually perceived as pitch. My living room is near that size, but with the furniture in it, it is effectively smaller. On my BBb 186, in my living room, I can play near pedal D and Db, and C softly. When I open the front door, to effectively lengthen the room, I can play C, and B nat softly. But I can't get pedal BBb until I open both the front door and the back door, effectively opening up the space completely.
I thought I was nuts (well, I know, yes, but for other reasons) until I first played my 186 in the large hall at the local university, where the pedal BBb rang out very well, indeed. A friend of mine who plays euph came over to practice, and he was amused and quite enlightened when I showed him the difference the physicality of the room made.
It seems to me that part of what makes a BAT work is its propagation characteristics. I think the wide bell and particularly the large bell throat allow the pressure fronts to exit in all directions more uniformly than with a tuba that has a narrower bell shape. That means that the listener is hearing the sound after it has reflected from many surfaces and followed many paths, with no one dominant path. The slight phase shift between those different-length paths causes the sound to smooth out, and I think this is what makes the BAT sound so round and full.
In a small room, there physically is no room for all those paths, and you lose the effect.
I can hear my Holton's characteristic sound in a remarkably small room. My practice room has a sloped ceiling that starts at 8' and ends up at about 22', with a long dimension in the space that is nearly 40 feet. That's big enough to hear the difference, though others can't usually hear the difference between the Holton and smaller tubas when I play below about low Bb.
But there's nothing quite like the sound that returns to me in a big room.
One way I describe the difference between the BAT sound and the power sound (ala Alexander) is that the BAT sound fills the room from the bottom up, like filling a bathtub with water. The Alex sound reaches the distant listener, like being soaked with the stream from a hose. You get wet either way. The power sound is more frontal rather than omnipresent and I think the propagation pattern has a lot to do with that.
Rick "who can't play good pedals even in a big room" Denney
I cannot adequately address the specific physics of playing in various size rooms. I can only state my believe that the player needs to respond to the different size rooms by adjusting the sound to adequately fill up the room. Obviously, each room is a little different from any other. Let me add here that I am speaking of performance halls, practice rooms, living rooms, whatever. By listening to the sound coming back to us we can then assess what we need to provide in sound to maximize the room. This may especially be important in a performance venue.
I do not intend to disagree with what has been posted earlier in this thread. I believe that when one practices one also receives some feedback from the room. If the acoustics are live, this usually results in a more flattering, more resonant sound. When things are dead, the sound is less resonant. I believe it is good to get a little practice in both of these acoustical settings.
When performing publicly, one should always consider what sound is getting out to the listeners. Ultimately, this is where it is most important to sound good.
As I re-read this post, I recognize my inadequacy at clearly stating my meaning. It is, however, the best I can do right now. A week of working with kids has probably taken whatever brain cells I may have and fried them beyond recognition.
After practicing in flattering acoustics, it has been almost shocking to play auditions in dead acoustics. In one audition, I was seated two feet from an extremely thick curtain that separated the audition space from the rest of the stage and the "house." The player faced the curtain in a space so small that it was nearly impossible to reposition the chair. The committee listened from the auditorium seats. The curtain seemed to virtually "suck up" any semblance of resonance and warmth. It was quite a learning experience: be ready to adjust the playing style of those excerpts for any acoustics that you encounter.
Nevertheless, it is still gratifying to practice and perform in the Recital Hall of my store (now named Steinway of Chicago; formerly named Chicago Piano Superstore):
TubaRay wrote:As I re-read this post, I recognize my inadequacy at clearly stating my meaning. It is, however, the best I can do right now. A week of working with kids has probably taken whatever brain cells I may have and fried them beyond recognition.
I had a post ready for this thread, but hit the "Back" button. As I proofread it, I saw where I would, probably, piss off several people.
bloke "who has sanded on a rusty trailer all day getting it ready to paint, and is just too weary to try to deal with possibly trying to put out several 'virtual' grass fires...summary: 'Who cares?' "
Was all this over something I wrote? Do I need to re-read my post too? I did not proofread this time and might have expressed myself very poorly. I just prefer to work on music in a very big room with a high ceiling. I play in very dry spaces as well. Did I piss someone off? Sorry if I did.
I meant no reference to you, Wade. I apologize if it seemed so.
bloke wrote:I had a post ready for this thread, but hit the "Back" button. As I proofread it, I saw where I would, probably, piss off several people.
Thanks for the responses so far. I am curious about what might have been said to piss off people. I would not have thought a discussion of acoustic effects on our noble instrument could be so contentious?
