happyroman wrote:I fail to see why, Bloke, you seem to be so set against this method of practice. If it doesn't work for you, then fine, don't do it. Just because it isn't helpful for you does not make it wrong, but that seems to be your message. There are many extremely accomplished brass artists that advocate its use. So your attempts to seemingly convince others that mouthpiece buzzing/practice is not helpful seems really out of place in a forum where we are here to share ideas and help each other.
What I got from the "where does the metal spring strike the metal frame?" etc. post, was a refutation of "no sound without striking" notion that the preceding post exemplified ("try clapping ... without them touching each other.")
Much of this thread has been about whether you can make common tuba noises without lips touching. Which is arguably immaterial to any practical purpose - whatever the truth of it, we hopefully can all make common tuba noises.
You're more interested in whether it's a useful practice technique, and again that might not depend on whether it's exactly how we play normally. Might be fair to say everyone knows it isn't exactly how we play normally.
Finally, I will let bloke speak for himself if his opinion differs from others on whether it's a useful practice technique, but ... if so, is that out of place in a forum where we are here to share ideas and help each other? Are only the majority's ideas helpful, and any dissent from the majority view is harmful? Is this orthodoxy that fragile?
FWIW, I often attach a short plastic tube to the shank of my mouthpiece when I buzz. It provides just enough extra resistance to make it a tiny bit easier to get the lips to vibrate, and allows for slightly longer phrases before I run out of air.
Here is a video from Alessandro Fossi's YouTube site demonstrating some of his To Buzz exercises using a tube. He seems to prefer a tube of about 20 cm (eight inches). I personally prefer one about half that long.
Finally, I have no idea whether my lips come into contact with each other when they are vibrating or not. I was surprised to see the video Doug Elliot posted that seems to show that they do in fact touch mid-vibration. But I suppose you can't always believe what you see. There are such things as optical illusions. However, I have no dog in that fight whatsoever. If you think they touch, or think they don't, that's fine with me.
Regarding Mr. Lindberg's video, the issue I have is the premise that buzzing is practicing a bad sound.
Based on my studies with Arnold Jacobs, whenever I play on the instrument, or on the mouthpiece, I am simultaneously singing in the brain. I hear the best possible sound I can imagine and I attempt to imitate that sound when I play. I am always trying to produce my finest quality of tone, whether that's a tuba sound, or a resonant buzz on the mouthpiece. Either way, I am vividly imagining what I want it to sound like and sending THAT message to the lips.
In his demonstration, Mr. Lindberg is simply making a generic buzzing sound on the mouthpiece, with no apparent attempt to make it beautiful (we can agree to disagree whether or not a buzz can be described as beautiful). Then, when he places the mouthpiece in the trombone while buzzing, he appears to make no conscious change. In other words, he is not attempting to make a beautiful sound on the trombone as he replaces the mouthpiece. This goes against everything Jake ever said about playing a brass instrument. We must always strive to produce our finest quality of tone, and Lindberg does not do that in the video.
If you buzz a lousy sound into the mouthpiece, the instrument will resonate a lousy sounding note, and that's what he did.
The air creates pressure in the lips. Eventually, the pressure parts the lips and creates a pulse while releasing the pressure. The tension in the lips, created by the embouchure, causes them to close again because the pressure has been released. And, now that they are closed again, the pressure increases, and the process repeats. The tension of the embouchure is the primary determinant of how much pressure is required to part the lips, and how quickly they will close again, and thus the frequency at which they do so. Furthermore, the vacuum between the pulses reflecting back from the bell end of the bugle arrive in time to reinforce the next parting, making the lips part at the right time more easily. That's why it's easier to buzz the frequency that matches the valves that have been pushed, and hard to buzz a frequency when the wrong valves have been pushed.
I suppose it is possible to create the necessary pulse without the lips actually touching, but I rather think that doesn't happen, no matter what bloke might be perceiving. It sure seems to me that my lips touch, though I certainly don't try to "mash them together".
The vibration is certainly not a motor skill--the only motor skill is setting the tension of the lips to produce a buzz of a certain frequency. (And there are motor skills related to changing those frequencies). But the buzz itself is the dynamic feedback loop of the air, the flexibility of the lips, and the resonance of the instrument. It lasts as long as air feeds it.
I suspect what Bloke is sensing is whether or not he is trying to mash his lips together, versus just blowing through them, using the embouchure to set the roll and aperture of the lips, and then letting them do what they do. That means the corners are firm, but the vibrating part is not. The corners just get closer together, and the lips roll towards the mouth so that the firmer tissue does the touch (if Roger Lewis has his way), to play higher notes.
The Jew's Harp is indeed a terrible analogy. The metal spring provides the frequency without any help from the air, and the only thing the player provides is an open resonating chamber. Releasing air is essential to opening the lungs to include them in that resonance, and that is why one allows air to go through the harp, but the is not what drives the vibration as with creating a buzz.
But I totally agree that playing a mouthpiece without any added resistance requires that I mash my lips together to get the buzz, and that doing so seems a bad thing. Unless I'm doing it just to get the lips loose enough to make that first sound without embarrassment, I use a thingie on the end to add resistance, and for hotel-room practice when there's no tuba handy.
Rick "the lips have to be close enough to constrain the pressure no matter what, or there is no buzz" Denney
I think we have to allow for the possibility, or rather near certainty, that at least some people's lips do touch. I wouldn't expect that to necessarily sound "strikingly" different, either - I mean, it may be a consequence of an embouchure that probably would sound different, but clearly (?) the lip buzz noise is not lips banging against each other. Lips aren't very good percussion instruments.
As for the bassoon reed, if it helps, on the previous page I quote Fletcher & Ross on reed acoustics. The gist of it is that while the clarinet reed stays open at lower dynamic levels, the double reeds apparently always close during the cycle. Normally anyway - there might be some very faint subtone option that stays open.
bloke wrote:I know that I start the sound with my lips apart, and I don't try to push my lips together once I start blowing air.
I can look in the mirror and see that they can't possibly be touching.
Again, it's not a playing-card-on-spokes sound...It's more like the sound of the spokes cutting through the wind when the wheel is spinning...
...or did I just explain why some people sound different when they play...??
bassoon reed tip.jpg
The sound is created by the air pulses either way, not by the impact of lips on each other. That would be true no matter whether they touch or not.
But the tuba is not a whistle, and that is not what makes the sound. A whistle works by creating a cycling turbulence across a resonant chamber, with the resonance defining the frequency of the cycle. If tubas worked that way, we wouldn't need lips at all. Flute player lips do not create a buzz.
I'm sure my lips are lightly touching when I place them on the mouthpiece, but I'm also sure I do not mash them together. Whether they touch or not during the buzz is probably something over which there is no control by the player, assuming he's not trying to mash them together.
Rick "suspecting that overthinking this could really mess somebody up" Denney
If you really want to know about bassoon reed vibration, there's quite a good article here http://koppreeds.com/physicalforces.html" target="_blank
which has many parallels (as I see it) to the way lips vibrate on brass instruments. The tip of the reed does in fact open AND close, just as lips do, creating pulses of air which are the vibrations.
It's the learned control of the required tension that produces a quality sound or not, and range. Which also applies to the mouthpiece or reed off the instrument, or in our case even buzzing the embouchure unsupported by mouthpiece or instrument.
Which would partly explain why the double reeds sound like they do, compared to for example the clarinet, whose reed doesn't close at low dynamic levels.
Donn wrote:Which would partly explain why the double reeds sound like they do, compared to for example the clarinet, whose reed doesn't close at low dynamic levels.
And how do you actually know that a clarinet reed doesn't close at low dynamic levels?
Doug Elliott wrote:And how do you actually know that a clarinet reed doesn't close at low dynamic levels?
I know it intuitively because I have played clarinet, but for a more compelling argument, may I put forth The Physics of Musical Instruments, Fletcher & Rossing, starting on page 483
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.
Here they use the term "beat" for contact between the reed and the mouthpiece. (I think they exaggerate the difficulty of doing it with the saxophone, but to be sure "this playing mode" isn't the characteristic saxophone timbre.)
bloke wrote:...and no, there's just no way that - the way my lips are positioned when I'm playing "low F", that they could possibly be bumping into each other - not 44X/sec ...not at all. They are vibrating independently - just as do the blades of a bassoon or oboe reed.
My experience too. It is impossible that my lips touch each other in the center. They are too far apart. I tried starting with them touching. It is unworkable (for me).
bloke wrote:...and no, there's just no way that - the way my lips are positioned when I'm playing "low F", that they could possibly be bumping into each other - not 44X/sec ...not at all. They are vibrating independently - just as do the blades of a bassoon or oboe reed.
My experience too. It is impossible that my lips touch each other in the center. They are too far apart. I tried starting with them touching. It is unworkable (for me).
I don't know about clarinet. I read the Casadonte study, but I didn't understand it completely. It talks about "closing" but wasn't clear enough for me.
However, every video I've seen of brass players shows the lips closing completely on every cycle. The size of the aperture is an average size across the cycle. If there is an example of one that doesn't close I'd be interested in seeing it.
I start with the lips touching but I know some people don't. That doesn't prove they never touch - air blowing past them will suck them together, then when they touch air pressure will blow them open.
Would it be enough if someone threatened bloke over this? Or is he an exception to "lives at stake"?
I can't confidently say whether my lips touch, but if I may, a brief outline of what we know:
Videos show every (?) trombone player's lips apparently touching
most players probably didn't feel it
trombone sounds different from tuba
it's possible to make sounds with a reed without touching (clarinet)
though bassoon reeds do touch
the sound is not produced by lips touching
So in short, I believe we can't tell for sure, and we can't really say it matters. Let alone lives are at stake - unless someone were to threaten bloke.
Whatever you do with your lips at the start of the note is one thing, but how do you know whether they are touching while making the note? Do you think the nerve endings in your lips can distinguish between banging against pulses of air versus touching each other? I' skeptical, and if we had a way to arbitrate it, it's a bet I would take. I know you think you are sure, but I suspect self-diagnosis in this cases is a flawed approach.
Furthermore, I don't know how in the world a player would control it. It seems clear to me that once the buzz is initiated, the lips do what they do, as long as we aren't trying to impose some external influence by purposely mashing them together (or, for that matter, holding them apart). When I purposely try to hold my lips apart, playing that low F produces nothing but air. When I purposely try to hold them together, I can't get enough looseness to speak that frequency. That note occurs naturally when I don't purposely try to do either, but rather let the lips do their own thing with the proper looseness to vibrate at that frequency.
I certainly lower my jaw and increase the aperture when making that low F, and am especially conscious of keeping my teeth apart.
I'll play some more with the concept, though. I'm always interested in learning something new, and I don't think I have a good enough low register to use my own experience as a guide. But my suspicion is that absent any deliberate mashing together or holding apart, this is a distinction without a difference.
To the point of whether buzzing is useful as an alternative to playing, I agree that playing the mouthpiece alone is sufficiently unlike playing the instrument as to mean the practice would lead me astray if I did it. When I buzz for practice without the instrument, I use one of those tube things that adds resistance. That said, despite your "dream", some of the great players do use buzzing, and so the notion that it is necessarily harmful has too many contrary examples to prove. I have found, however, that buzzing reinforces good airflow. One can make a weak sound on the instrument, using the resonance of the instrument as a crutch, but playing the mouthpiece alone immediately reveals the issue because the weak airflow can't produce the buzz in the first place. (This is for players who are working on fundamentals of air flow, of course.) And I watched Daellenbach use it in a master class. The best tuba player in that class (by far--he was professionally trained and plays professionally now) had a pretty-sounding buzz, and Daellenbach suggested that it needed more meat in the buzz. That notion has been mentioned in this thread--the buzz should have some spectral content that may sound like noise on the non-resonant mouthpiece, but that has sufficient spectral content to create the overtones necessary for a colorful sound on the instrument. I rather think all that wouldn't take more than a minute or two during a practice session--not enough time to undermine a proper approach to the embouchure.
When my teacher used buzzing, he had me place my finger partially over the opening of the mouthpiece to create resistance, but that was, if anything, caused by an air flow even weaker than I now use.
But one thing is certainly true: There is no one true path to good tuba playing. The path is validated by the outcome alone.
