Playing Low Loudly vs. Sounding Like a Bass Trombone

[Mark]

What makes those upper harmonics contribute to the depth of the sound, it seems to me, is that they are well-tuned and create a resonant stack of difference tones to reinforce the fundamental.

Don't you wish these things http://www.wwbw.com/Peterson-SC5000-Tuner-i15519.music were cheaper?

[Jeff Miller]

I think a lot of it depends on the nature of the tuba you're playing. Obviously, you can alter the tone colour by altering your airspeed/embouchure/concept, but it's always going to be constrained to some extent by the characteristics of your horn.

I normally wouldn't add to the board clutter to respond to a post like this (since there are already so many good replies) but tonight a friend and I were comparing his Nirschl and my Yorkbrunner. I was quite suprised by the difference. Both sounded great, but different. The Nirschl had a very woolly, fuzzy sound that was pretty consistent from the low CC down to the pedal. The Yorkbrunner has a more focused and (to my ear) vibrant sound, and these tendencies definitely were intensified from the low G to the low Db just above the pedal range.

Both sounded great, but just like two different actors playing the same role, they had different nuances of character.

[Shockwave]

The best players seem to demonstrate a complex sound that shows depth, rather than a dark sound devoid of the brilliance of upper harmonics. What makes those upper harmonics contribute to the depth of the sound, it seems to me, is that they are well-tuned and create a resonant stack of difference tones to reinforce the fundamental.

Buzzy, airy, and flatulent tuba sounds seem to occur because those upper harmonics are not well tuned and create strong noise components.

So, good sound is characterized by a range of well-tuned harmonics that reinforce and color the fundamental. That color is what makes a tuba a tuba. I think that was Bloke's point.

I also tried this: I picked any two adjacent overtones to turn up, with all the others zeroed out. Even the 31st and 32nd harmonic created a clearly audible fundamental in my ear. So, the fundamental is strenghened when we have a good range of in-tune overtones in our sound.

Rick "thinking tuba sound is important at least to the 16th harmonic for low notes" Denney

If you are talking about 58Hz fundamental, that means just a pure sine wave that repeats 58 times per second. If you combine any harmonics of that 58Hz wave, say the 31st and 32nd harmonics at 1798Hz and 1856Hz, the sum is a wave that repeats 58 times per second but contains none of the 58Hz fundamental. The only way to get fundamental from harmonics is to transmit the harmonics through a transducer or medium with nonlinear properties.

There is a big difference between the tuning of the harmonics of the horn and the tuning of the harmonics in the sound. There is no such thing as an out of tune harmonic in the sound. If it's not in tune, it's not a harmonic. Fourier discovered that any repeating waveform could be considered a sum of many harmonics, all of which are whole multiples of the fundamental. Tubas create repeating waveforms via resonance, and are driven by pulses of air from flapping lips. By the nature of the processes and mathematics at work, all the harmonics must be perfectly in tune.

On the other hand, the tuning of resonances in tubas is not perfect. The tuba is designed to resonate at certain pitches, roughly but not exactly forming a harmonic series. Some notes that sound horribly out of tune in a perfect harmonic series are actually tuned much better on tubas, and other notes that sound fine in a harmonic series and are out of tune on some tubas. The tuba is designed to resonate and reinforce the perfectly tuned harmonics generated by the lips, so when a particular harmonic on a tuba is not in tune with a perfect harmonic series, the tuba does not resonate and reinforce that harmonic and it ends up weaker than another harmonic that is in tune with the horn. The intonation tendencies of a horn influence its characteristic sound by selecting which harmonics will stand out and which will not. The tuba can not independently change the frequency of a particular harmonic generated by the lips, and the lips can not generate an out of tune harmonic.

I'm not suggesting that the ideal sound is all fundamental, or even mostly fundamental, but the main difference between tuba tone and bass trombone tone is in the lowest harmonics. Remember that low frequencies spread much more broadly than the high frequencies that shoot out of the horn in a beam toward the ceiling. From a distance, the sound balance shifts toward the low frequencies because of air absorption of highs and the radiation pattern, so anything you can add to the lows makes a lot more difference out in the audience than anything you subtract from the highs.

The best example of this I know of regards two sousaphone players I know. Up close when the band is playing they sound almost identical, with extreme sousaphone blat. From a distance, though, they sound quite different. One has a thin bass trombone sound, while the other has a huge, fat tuba sound that seems to carry for miles. The difference is in the lowest harmonics.

-Eric

[Donn]

There is a big difference between the tuning of the harmonics of the horn and the tuning of the harmonics in the sound. There is no such thing as an out of tune harmonic in the sound. If it's not in tune, it's not a harmonic. Fourier discovered that any repeating waveform could be considered a sum of many harmonics, all of which are whole multiples of the fundamental. Tubas create repeating waveforms via resonance, and are driven by pulses of air from flapping lips. By the nature of the processes and mathematics at work, all the harmonics must be perfectly in tune.

Could you elaborate on this? It seems like you might be saying that component tones that are out of tune with the fundamental can't occur - not just fail to meet the rigorous definition of a harmonic, but can't be produced. Like they would cancel out or something.

I'm not suggesting that the ideal sound is all fundamental, or even mostly fundamental, but the main difference between tuba tone and bass trombone tone is in the lowest harmonics.

I thought the "clipped waveform" explanation made sense to me, but I wonder if we're all thinking of the same thing when we say "bass trombone". I mean, no doubt they can actually be played sweet and clear, but that isn't their special sound.

[Shockwave]

Could you elaborate on this? It seems like you might be saying that component tones that are out of tune with the fundamental can't occur - not just fail to meet the rigorous definition of a harmonic, but can't be produced. Like they would cancel out or something.

I thought the "clipped waveform" explanation made sense to me, but I wonder if we're all thinking of the same thing when we say "bass trombone". I mean, no doubt they can actually be played sweet and clear, but that isn't their special sound.

Yes, that is correct, out of tune harmonics can not occur in the sound when you are playing a tuba (properly). There's only one way I know to hear the out of tune resonances of a tuba all at the same time, and I'll get to that.

Pianos and guitars produce out of tune harmonics because they are played by plucking and hammering, exciting the strings with transients and letting the vibrations decay. Transients are pulses containing all frequencies within a certain band limited by the attack and release speed of the pulse, so any resonance frequency within that band can be excited whether it is harmonically in tune or not. During decay, the energy stored in the resonator makes the resonator vibrate at its natural frequencies whether they are in tune or not. The stiffness of a piano string is what produces all those brilliant out of tune harmonics when it is hammered, however a bowed piano string has a very dull sound. The drawing of the bow across the string produces only in tune harmonics, and since the frequencies don't match, the upper resonances are weak. If you smack the mouthpiece of a tuba, you will hear the out of tune resonances as they decay. However, when playing a tuba, all the harmonics in the sound are in tune because the tuba is being driven by only one pair of lips flapping at one frequency with harmonic components only at whole multiples of that frequency.

For example, a lot of Bb tubas play flat on the Bb on top of the staff compared to Bb at the bottom of the staff. If you record and play back the two pitches together, you will hear a warbling sound because the high pitch is not exactly twice the frequency of the low pitch. However, when the tuba is playing low Bb, the same resonance of the horn that is the fundamental when you are playing high Bb is also being excited. There is no warbling sound when you play just the low Bb because your lips can not produce those two non harmonic frequencies at the same time.

Clear as mud?

I just thought of one more easy way to make the tuba sound like a bass trombone. Stab the attacks and taper the notes. So many people play "loud" by sticking a fortississississimo attack on a forte note. That's guaranteed to give you a nice, big, ugly nasal blat that echoes around the concert hall for the entire duration of the note...and then some.

-Eric

[MaryAnn]

When the tuba sounds like a bass trombone, it just means there isn't enough fundamental to balance the upper harmonics. When the lips open and close abruptly, there isnt a nice long air pulse to reinforce the fundamental. You dont want your lips to smack together flat, you want them to have some shape so that the air flow is valved more gently. In practice this means tensing the corners and relaxing the middle.
-Eric

This topic is way past this advice already...but this is true on all brass instruments. It took me years to develop a horn embouchure that was relaxed in the middle, and during those years I had a blatty, thin sound. The vibrating tissue needs to be soft, not tense. For people struggling with basic embouchure development, that can be a huge hurdle. On horn, I had to learn how to close / open the aperture by squeezing / not squeezing towards the middle; and I have to change the oral cavity shape differently for high, low, and middle range. On tuba...it seems to be more lip curl for me, but for you normal-sized people it might be different. I have lip curl on horn, but the emphasis is more on the squeeze ratio.
MA

[Lew]

I think a lot of it depends on the nature of the tuba you're playing. Obviously, you can alter the tone colour by altering your airspeed/embouchure/concept, but it's always going to be constrained to some extent by the characteristics of your horn.

I normally wouldn't add to the board clutter to respond to a post like this (since there are already so many good replies) but tonight a friend and I were comparing his Nirschl and my Yorkbrunner. I was quite suprised by the difference. Both sounded great, but different. The Nirschl had a very woolly, fuzzy sound that was pretty consistent from the low CC down to the pedal. The Yorkbrunner has a more focused and (to my ear) vibrant sound, and these tendencies definitely were intensified from the low G to the low Db just above the pedal range.

Both sounded great, but just like two different actors playing the same role, they had different nuances of character.

I tend to agree. I have 4 tubas that I use regularly, 2 BBb and 2 Eb, and the only one on which I can make that note, and below, sound good is the Besson 983. I have tried different mouthpieces and it makes very little difference. Although I can play the notes from low F down to pedal Bb easily and with a good sound on the Besson, I can't get the same projection on the Bb above that down to the G. If it weren't for that the Besson might be the only horn I play.