The Lowest Note

[Hank74]

Here's a simple question for all of you tuba players. What is the lowest note you've ever played? If you could mention this visually, like I will with mine, that would help out.

My lowest note is the low, low BBb.


______________________________ G line on bass clef staff
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-*b


Hank74

[windshieldbug]

I'd notate it, but I'm still waiting for the second vibration. Could be any minute now (or not... )

[Kevin Hendrick]

______________________________ G line on bass clef staff
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-
-
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- D

(ran out of valves )

[TexTuba]

Gb below pedal Bb is where I can go. Don't know why it's not like there's anything out there for that range....









Ralph

[Joe Baker]

That 'D' had to have been horrendously out of tune, and here's why. Concert A above Middle C, which is the C on the ledger line above the bass clef staff, is currently set to a frequency of 440. For every octave that you go down, the frequency of A is halved. Also, take into account the even-tempered scale. For the D that you mention, the frequency of the A below it would be (according to A=440) 13.75 Hz. That means that D is 18.354 (roughly) Hz. The lowest tone audible to the human ear is right around 20 Hz. Therefore, in order to hear the note, you would have had to have actually been playing an Eb around 47-48 cents sharp. Which is not a D. Also, and I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned this either, it's called a BBb tuba because the fundamental pitch of the horn, given its length, is a BBb on the Grand Staff...in other words, a pedal BBb. Anything lower would be an undertone. Sorry to rain on your parade, Kevin.

Huh?

Assume a BBb tuba (No particular reason, just one example that makes this claim quite plausible). There's the "low" Bb (under the 2nd ledger line), then the "pedal" Bb (on what, the 6th LL). Add the 4th valve, and you have "pedal" F (under 7th LL). Now add 3rd valve and you have a somewhat flat Eb (8th LL); add first (and push in) for what is probably a close-enough D (under 8th LL).

Remember that the fundamental is almost completely absent from these notes (see Rick Denney's site for more details). The higher harmonics produced as multiples of the fundamental cause our brains to fill in the mostly missing fundamental frequency. So that fact that it is actually below our ability to hear is relatively unimportant.

Sorry to rain on your parade, jsipes.
______________________________
Joe Baker, who has difficulty below the 4th ledger line.

[funkcicle]

Also, and I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned this either, it's called a BBb tuba because the fundamental pitch of the horn, given its length, is a BBb on the Grand Staff...in other words, a pedal BBb. Anything lower would be an undertone. Sorry to rain on your parade, Kevin.

Just a short addendum to what Joe B's already said... Bb is the fundamental pitch of the open horn, but every time you press a valve(or any combination of valves) you are lowering that fundamental pitch, as you are increasing the length of tubing. Half step for the 2nd valve, whole step for the first, and so on and so forth.

As to the original question, I remember my freshman year of college all of the tubists in the studio competing for who had the 'best' double-pedal C..I don't remember any of them sounding great, but they all did pretty much sound like a C.

[Adam C.]

I believe there's some printed pedal AA's in one Ewazen band piece. I don't recall seeing anything written below that, ever.

[Steve Marcus]

There is an orchestral piece by Edgard Varèse (Ameriques? or Arcana?) in which one of the tuba parts goes down to pedal GGG. (Yes, these two compositions are also answers to the question that was posed on TubeNet a few weeks ago about orchestral pieces scored for two tubas.)

Several brass band compositions, e.g. Philip Wilby's Revelation, have pedal GGG's and such (written by the composer, not interpolated by the BBb Bass player!).

And, of course, there's good ol' Encounters II by William Kraft, which has a double pedal CCCCCCC. Tongue slapping or lip flapping, whatever your pleasure.

[Adam C.]

Duh, I forgot about Encounters II...

[Dylan King]

If you count using the tongue to flap the vibrations, I can play an octave below pedal CC. If the lips must be vibrating, I can get down to the E below pedal CC when I'm warmed up real good with the Bayamo.

[phoenix]

i can go down to two octaves below bottom line F. I need to shift my embouchure up, however (so that the bottom lip is doing most of the vibrating)

[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