buzzing on the mouthpiece...NO one agrees with me, EXCEPT...

[Donn]

Well, to be fair, the film is trombone players. The narrator comments that if the lips don't close, the result is "poor tone quality" - for trombone. We get from this that lips can generate tone without closing, and that the tone quality might also be poor on tuba. Or the tuba might turn out to be a significantly different instrument. It adds up to a demonstration that's very convincing if it's what you already understand to be the case, not so much if it's contrary to your experience.

For what it's worth (not much!) I can't say for sure for myself. Might be touching. But the sensation of touching does indeed seem clearer on bass trombone, same pitches.

[happyroman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoxnhjLMVBo" target="_blank

If you doubt that the lips close all the way, try pausing the video to catch different parts of the vibration cycle.
This film was taken at about 30,000 frames a second, with a highly specialized rotary prismatic lens. If I remember correctly, it was done in 1978, and he said it wasted 1/4 mile of film just getting up to speed each time.

The "aperture" you see at normal speed is an average of the full opening and closing; it's not just a hole.

I see no reason to think that tuba lips vibrate any differently, just slower.

Just goes to show you that you learn something new every day. I would not have believed that the lips close while playing if I had not seen it with my own eyes. Before watching this, I hypothesized that the touching might occur when playing higher notes, but since the lips would be farther apart as the player descends in range, they would be less likely to touch during vibration. The film of George Roberts playing low notes on the bass trombone CLEARLY disproved my hypothesis. Very interesting film. Thanks for posting, Doug.

[Ken Herrick]

In essence, playing a brass instrument, or a read instrument, the vibration which gets amplified by the resonating tube is the result of "wind" pushing a pair of surfaces so they vibrate and open and close to modify the pressures within the resonating pipe.

1.Yep, you can make a buzz without a mouthpiece.
2.Yes, you can "buzz" with a mouthpiece
3, You can be buzzing without the mouthpiece being inserted into the instrument and produce a crappy sound when you insert it.
4. Yes, you can produce a "beautiful" sound with the mouthpiece inserted, pull it out and produce nothing.

Clarinets, oboes, saxophones, bassoons, all produce their sounds by having the tip of the reed (s)
open and close. the same applies with the embouchure for brass players. If you only have a bit of meat flapping in the breeze you will only produce the "fart sounds" a few people seem to take so much pleasure in saying they get paid for producing.

Like so many things in life, if you want to be recognised as a great "guru" the one anointed one who is bringing enlightenment to the poor unwashed masses, you can, if you keep digging, find somebody else who will concur with you. Then keep telling the same thing over and over and over until even you believe the falsehoods you are saying.

Does that make you "right" ???????

Joe, I truly respect you for a lot of things you can do, you do some things extremely well. However, maybe it would be better if you stuck with doing what you do do well, and quit trying to ram your politics and such down everybody else's throats. After all, this is Tubenet - NOT Blokenet! I'm afraid you got his one wrong. And as has often occurred, your multiple postings do not make you right. The "last word" just aint necessarily the "right" word.

Sorry mate, but a lot of potential and former contributors are just plain sick and tired of you trying to dominate this forum. As a few people said to me a few years ago when I visited them, this forum has lost "something" and they no longer participate. Dominance, rather than open discussion had taken over. They were very knowledgeable people who could contribute a lot here.

[Bacchanalia]

There are a lot of very intelligent, well informed people here who still have radically different ideas on what's going on inside the mouthpiece. To me it seems that despite our embouchure differences, the basic principle is pretty much the same for all of us--lips flap in the breeze, makes noise, etc. I think it's hard for many of us to imagine the lips actually touching (since that would appear to "chop up" the air column) for the same reason we all had difficulty imagining streams of water as individual droplets until videos like this starting popping up everywhere:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OtxlQTmx1LE" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

If we pull the lips farther apart, the vibration becomes less pronounced and will stop at some point when the lips aren't close enough for the flapping flesh to touch at all. The trick IMHO, is to get just the right balance between "too close" and "too far apart" for the sound to be what you want it to be.

I'm not claiming to be a scientist here. Maybe it IS possible to get sound out of the horn with the lips each vibrating separately--but I don't think that's the sound we're looking for.

Rob--Who can make whale-fart sounds too but wonders why they're rarely received well by the rest of the ensemble ;0)

[Donn]

1.Yep, you can make a buzz without a mouthpiece.
2.Yes, you can "buzz" with a mouthpiece
3, You can be buzzing without the mouthpiece being inserted into the instrument and produce a crappy sound when you insert it.
4. Yes, you can produce a "beautiful" sound with the mouthpiece inserted, pull it out and produce nothing.

Clarinets, oboes, saxophones, bassoons, all produce their sounds by having the tip of the reed(s) open and close. the same applies with the embouchure for brass players. If you only have a bit of meat flapping in the breeze you will only produce the "fart sounds" a few people seem to take so much pleasure in saying they get paid for producing.

I think even Bloke the Tyrant may agree with 1 - 4. The second part, about closing/not closing, is really rather academic and even people who have been deeply engaged in tuba playing technique may be surprised to see how it actually looks.

That said, I believe your information about reeds is wrong. Saxophone at least, the reed remains open, does not touch the mouthpiece, until the volume gets pretty loud (and there's a tone change at this point.) Which is interesting, because the exact and precise shape of the mouthpiece facing matters a lot even when it doesn't touch "anything" - anything but air, which is actually something.

Fart noises, on the other hand, I think we all agree require complete closure during the oscillatory cycle.

[Doug Elliott]

Saxophone at least, the reed remains open, does not touch the mouthpiece, until the volume gets pretty loud (and there's a tone change at this point.) Which is interesting, because the exact and precise shape of the mouthpiece facing matters a lot even when it doesn't touch "anything" - anything but air, which is actually something.

Without definitive proof otherwise, I would say any type of vibrating reed whether it's single, double, or lips, has to close all the way during each vibrating cycle, or it wouldn't produce much of any sound at all. That's just the nature of sound waves. Without a full cycle it's nothing but air.

[Ken Herrick]

Doug, It wasn't me that said a sax reed doesn't touch the mouthpiece.

Along with Jake, I studied with Fred Hemke, saxophone, Ray Still, oboe, and a few other good woodwind players. They knew how things worked and what you say is consistent with what they said.

Funny thing happened a few minutes ago.....................I got knocked out of here

Maybe the old "guest" is exercising some old privileges. Oh what the hell, why waste time on B....net

Maybe somebody should go plant some corn and watch it grow.

[Donn]

Without definitive proof otherwise, I would say any type of vibrating reed whether it's single, double, or lips, has to close all the way during each vibrating cycle, or it wouldn't produce much of any sound at all. That's just the nature of sound waves. Without a full cycle it's nothing but air.

I don't know if this will pass as definitive proof, but I hope it will be of interest anyway - The Physics of Musical Instruments, Fletcher & Rossing, starting on page 483 presents analysis and discussion of reed mechanics.

For quiet playing, if the reed can be induced not to beat, the factor (U0/U1)n becomes dominant over all others, and the radiated spectral envelope simply falls smoothly above the fundamental. As we see later, this playing mode is straightforward on the clarinet, more difficult on the saxophone, and virtually impossible on double-reed instruments such as the oboe and bassoon.

...

The spectral sound of the oboe ... initially rises with increasing frequency until, above cutoff, it typically falls at about -12 dB/octave, almost irrespective of playing level, giving a bright "reedy" tone and suggesting that the oboe reed may always beat. It is easy to see how this comes about. The reed channel in the oboe reed is long and narrow and, as well as inhibiting flow separation and inducing a Bernoulli effect, this long channel introduces appreciable flow resistance. As discussed in Section 13.6.2 and illustrated in Fig. 13.3, this has the effect of steepening the negative-resistance part of the flow curve, while the fact that all harmonics of the flow are reinforced by resonances means that the pressure waveform can be quite assymetrical. In combination these factors cause the reed to close completely once in each cycle.

(In contradistinction to clarinet.) U0 etc. are harmonic frequency amplitudes.

[Three Valves]

All these music theory PHDs and technology and the science still isn't settled??

Let alone a 97% consensus??

Yowsa!!

[Donn]

Tuba playing isn't a science.

[Three Valves]

Tuba playing isn't a science.

Artistic impression is not a science, but what originates the sound and how it is done should be.

[Donn]

Sure, but the artists don't really need to get all wrought up about it. It's interesting, but it's natural that few if any of us have a solid grasp of the acoustics of what we're doing, since it's far from the most important thing in practice.

[Three Valves]

Sure, but the artists don't really need to get all wrought up about it. It's interesting, but it's natural that few if any of us have a solid grasp of the acoustics of what we're doing, since it's far from the most important thing in practice.

Oh, yeah??

So say you!!

Is that a FACT now Mr. Expert Bossy-Pants??

Heh, heh.

[Jay Bertolet]

Aside from the lengthy discussion here, which has bordered on absurd more than once already, what I find most interesting is that folks are so reticent to accept the existence of any view of mechanics that differs from their own view. This isn't some sort of contest or maybe some sort of government where the majority rules. This is art and expression. There are multiple paths to success here. Why not simply be confident in what you know, keep your mind open to new ideas, and then go about your business as you see fit? There are obviously wildly successful artists on both sides of this argument. Those of you reaching for the science card, please remember that the acoustic science of what we do is anything but settled. If this stuff was understood, don't you think we'd have figured out how our instruments function and stop producing bad ones? Where are those perfect copies of Stradivarius instruments again? The teachers that scare me are not the ones that have strong opinions that might differ from my own. The ones that scare me are the ones that speak in absolutes.

[Jay Bertolet]

Which is precisely what C. Lindberg did that set off this shitstorm.

And your dollars (or anyone else's) should vote accordingly.

[Donn]

The ones that scare me are the ones that speak in absolutes.

Which is precisely what C. Lindberg did that set off this shitstorm.

I'm going to call that "having a strong opinion" ("playing on the mouthpiece can be harmful for your playing.") Later we saw a C. Olka video where he's at least as unambiguous in his opinion. Would anyone ask these gentlemen to keep their opinions to themselves?

What seems like the scariest notion is that one side could "win", typically by outnumbering the other. That's where we can say goodbye to any progress or evolution.

[k001k47]

stuck with doing what you do do well, and quit trying to ram your

haha, do do

[chronolith]

I can think of at least one person who mandates that when you buzz the mouthpiece, you should do so in French.

[ndh3425]

Mouthpiece buzzing to me is not how a practice. it does not give the same resistance the instrument gives. therefore making it harder for me to get the pitches

[eutubabone]

Oh boy, this has been an interesting discussion. Do your lips touch before they buzz or after they buzz, or while they are buzzing? Something has to vibrate to produce a sound, doesn't it? Try clapping ( or making any type of sound) with your hands without them touching each other. Oh, one more question not related to sound production on a tuba: Do you open your mouth before you eat the cake or after you eat the cake. Inquiring minds need to know.