What makes the sound?

[Mary Ann]

I have a “double buzz.” I am generating two waves, but they are different and out of phase. Sometimes slightly out of phase, sometimes completely out of phase. This results in varying degrees of severity.

Any and all are invited to address and explain this phenomenon from your point of view.

Not responding to the discussion but if this really is a question, double buzz problems are easily solved by changing the leadpipe angle. Tip slowly up or down until the double buzz goes away. That simple. TFFJ now has a new thing to argue about. I have fixed more than one person on the spot this way, and fixed my own "embouchure problems" on the Hagen this way once I realized leadpipe angle was the problem.

[bloke]

I fix double buzzes by taking a short break (days) from playing, which allows me to regain lost strength (ie. fatigue/too much playing).
I've also (again, stirring the pot) caught myself allowing my lips to touch - which can also trigger them. I open the spacing wider, adjust the air, and they quit (again: unless fatigue is the main factor).

I haven't had this problem in several years, but it's not that I don't expect it to probably come back.

[arpthark]

To add to the mix, I will occasionally get a double buzz on (only) Bb above the staff on small-bore trombones and baritones, but never on larger bore euph, trombones or tuba.

That is ususally correlated with playing loud/high with completely cold chops, so there's probably some lip swelling involved as a factor.

I rarely practice tuba these days, and almost never practice any of the above instruments, so I'm sure a more methodical approach could sort it out if I ever cared to fix it, but I ain't got time for that.
_______

(sidebar: I did develop a persistent double buzz when I was studying tuba in college and attempted to brute force fix it, when I should have just taken several weeks off, and that contributed to a whole slew of other infirmities that arose in my playing that I won't get into (and that I am only now really getting over some 13 years later). I hesitate to call it dystonia, but it was a lot of weird sh!t happening at the same time and probably neuro/psychological in nature.)

[bloke]

To add to the mix, I will occasionally get a double buzz on (only) Bb above the staff on small-bore trombones and baritones, but never on larger bore euph, trombones or tuba.

That is ususally correlated with playing loud/high with completely cold chops, so there's probably some lip swelling involved as a factor.

I rarely practice tuba these days, and almost never practice any of the above instruments, so I'm sure a more methodical approach could sort it out if I ever cared to fix it, but I ain't got time for that.
_______

(sidebar: I did develop a persistent double buzz when I was studying tuba in college and attempted to brute force fix it, when I should have just taken several weeks off, and that contributed to a whole slew of other infirmities that arose in my playing that I won't get into (and that I am only now really getting over some 13 years later). I hesitate to call it dystonia, but it was a lot of weird sh!t happening at the same time and probably neuro/psychological in nature.)

@arpthark
I don't know how long you've been reading these things, but - at the former eLocation - a former widely known Midwestern tuba salesman would speak up about this and attempt to tutor people on how to fix it with practicing, to which I raised my bushy-were-they-not-trimmed eyebrows... but we all have our own beliefs regarding what is and what isn't, don't we?

Muscling through this issue sort of reminds me of attempting to step up one's jogging routine to fix a broken leg...

...but knowitallism is not uncommon:
I can think of a bloke who is pretty stubborn about believing he knows some things because he's paid to do them, and another fellow who is pretty stubborn about things because he believes that he and others have analyzed them as engineers, and he can supply footnotes. ...Now those are a couple of stubborn people.
At least one of them, though, is constantly chuckling.

[MiBrassFS]

.

[russiantuba]

Since most of us are doing this for a hobby, they don't have that much time to spend.
You don't get an engineering degree without spending ample time studying.
In fact, are line of work changes so rapidly we still need to spend a bunch of hours just to keep up.
We can't use equipment that is a hundred years old or do repair work old style.
And where do you think all the latest improvements came from...

You obviously don’t catch the joke. Guess the old days of these forums are dying. This was before my time but has been brought up over the years.

Since you are a hobbyist, I would say spending time making music would be beneficial than the over-analysis. But to each their own.

And I’ve been watching YouTube videos on ancient cultures and how modern science doesn’t explain some of their innovations and advancements and how we are looking at ancient civilizations to learn about engineering, medical, and other scientific advancements.

I just cooked part of my breakfast in a microwave that has had daily use since 1988, while for offices/classrooms, we have bought multiple newer microwaves. I don’t care about the latest advances, I would rather use this outdated microwave that works and lasts than the newest equipment that dies after 5 uses.

Ahhh, a Bloke-kind-of joke.
I did find the call on expertise rather disturbing, makes me thinking of all the stories I've read about dictatorial conductors.

Don't see the overanalysis, we are only discussing the elementary workings of brass instruments presented by the little latest research.
And the only exception being @Donn, nobody even bothered to read or take a good look at the info presented.
Tech is also a hobby, not solely a profession.

And what about over-analysis in the music, Bach wrote a lot of music but 300 years of analysing his work probably fills a small library.

I see you are using very recently developed types of tuba, so you don't seem to mind advancement here. And rightfully so since it is your profession.

They can make today's microwaves as good and better than your 1988 model, but that would suit today's throw-away economics. It has nothing to do with technical incompetence.

So houses are made for the throw away economy? My house is 125 years old and is doing better than lots of newer builds on build quality. Engineering might be better in design, but construction isn’t! I guess you could say the same about tubas. A certain 6/4 CC made in China apparently has the top engineering behind it, surprising to me all the ones I’ve played are like garbage. Maybe I just need to play a good one. My horns were designed 20+ years ago.

As a professional in music, I seriously don’t care about the physics. A good sound is a good sound. Look at the Phil Farkas book on embouchures. The best players had the worst embouchures.

I guess this only matters when you have robots playing trumpet (check out the YouTube videos).

[humBell]

90odd posts in less than a week, and i ain't amongst them? I been slipping. (Also, sometimes a sign it'll get locked...)

In response to the subject (without getting distracted yet by the content, i'll ask "What sound?" before i try to answer, but just 'cause i like the works of Phil Ochs, i'll let him pose the question...

[donn]

My house is 125 years old and is doing better than lots of newer builds on build quality. Engineering might be better in design, but construction isn’t!

Ha, when we moved out, our house was about 125. I think it may have had a few little upgrades since it was built, though - bathrooms were a nice touch. Quality was good enough to pull it through some hard years, but it wasn't exactly premium. I think you can build to a wide range of quality standards, and the same was true then. The difference with modern construction like the townhomes now being built in that area, could be more importantly the maintainability. Not only fixing a broken exterior panel etc., but adaptation to current resident preferences. The houses that have been there for a century have gone through all kinds of changes, sometimes things that saved their lives like a new roof, sometimes just enclosing a porch or something. The townhome boxes are what they are, and the materials you'd need to fix them aren't always on the shelves at the big box hardware store. They aren't built to last, and no one will be trying to make them last, they'll just go down hill until it's time for the bulldozer. There might be an analogy to tubas here, too.

[Mary Ann]

Look at the Phil Farkas book on embouchures. The best players had the worst embouchures.

When the religious fanatics get going on the horn groups about the only correct embouchure on the horn is the 2/3 -1/3 Farkas embouchure, I LOVE to post the picture from the Farkas picture book of successful pro horn embouchures, of the guy who is about 98% lower lip with just a little button protruding from his upper lip in the cup. That doesn't shut them up though; they simply ignore data that doesn't fit with what they are preaching.

[bloke]

This has been a pretty damn good troll.

[Eutubabone54]

Your lung capacity and speed and volume of air, the size and shape of your oral cavity, factors in, mainly. Also , another silly unrelated question, which created much discussion amongst my 5th graders- do you open your mouth before or after you eat the cake

[Eutubabone54]

Well, to be basic, God created the ability to make sound. You have 120 years to figure out how He did it. Then by that time, after you figured it out, you'd probably forget why you were wondering about it in the first place, forget why you were searching for that and your time would be up . The next generation could do it, possibly..

[russiantuba]

Ahhh, a Bloke-kind-of joke.
I did find the call on expertise rather disturbing, makes me thinking of all the stories I've read about dictatorial conductors.

Don't see the overanalysis, we are only discussing the elementary workings of brass instruments presented by the little latest research.
And the only exception being @Donn, nobody even bothered to read or take a good look at the info presented.
Tech is also a hobby, not solely a profession.

And what about over-analysis in the music, Bach wrote a lot of music but 300 years of analysing his work probably fills a small library.

I see you are using very recently developed types of tuba, so you don't seem to mind advancement here. And rightfully so since it is your profession.

They can make today's microwaves as good and better than your 1988 model, but that would suit today's throw-away economics. It has nothing to do with technical incompetence.

So houses are made for the throw away economy? My house is 125 years old and is doing better than lots of newer builds on build quality. Engineering might be better in design, but construction isn’t! I guess you could say the same about tubas. A certain 6/4 CC made in China apparently has the top engineering behind it, surprising to me all the ones I’ve played are like garbage. Maybe I just need to play a good one. My horns were designed 20+ years ago.

As a professional in music, I seriously don’t care about the physics. A good sound is a good sound. Look at the Phil Farkas book on embouchures. The best players had the worst embouchures.

I guess this only matters when you have robots playing trumpet (check out the YouTube videos).

I was talking about kitchen appliances, why compare that with a house?
Compare a 50 year old and a new one and then you'll see how much construction has evolved.
Do mind you not caring about physics, but then why do you make comments about it which make little to no sense.
Guess you fit in the Bloke category.

I know people with new builds that have structural engineering problems. So, maybe it is build quality?

I think you might be missing my original point about sound and definitely missing my point about this. You mentioned engineering you have to keep up, which is inferring that new engineering is superior or new discoveries are always right. I mentioned about old (and ancient) engineering and manufacturing being reintroduced because it simply worked.

Bringing this back to music, I have been called outdated when I choose no to play a 6/4 foghorn, teach Jacobs style pedagogy, and sound concept. Ironically, a lot of mindset coachings I’ve seen draw from the Jacobs pedagogy and I’ve seen it replace newer modern teachings simply because, it works.

[donn]

Off course it is build quality but that doesnt mean that better quality cant be delivered, it is just too expensive in our today economic.
And seeing the construction of the wooden houses wildly build in the US you can't expect them to last more than 100 years.Our houses are build with brick and concrete and they will all last 100 years.
But what mostly is forgotten is that the majority of the old houses are demolished long ago and for the big part only the best of them are still standing.
Houses of 60-70 years are now being renovated by the grandchildren and while structurally sound they fall short on insulation, ventilation...

Sure, it does appear that in terms of the built environment, we can't afford the things our great-grandparents could.

Maybe your houses are built with brick and concrete, but where I was, in Seattle, the predominate residential form uses concrete only in the foundation. The building itself is composite panels attached to wood frame, with flat roofs, little or no eaves. Interior walls are gypsum wallboard. The old houses are also wood framed - but here's where we were cheating, the wood was old growth Douglas fir, dense and resistant. The house that was torn down next door, built maybe 30 years later, had better quality construction and was still structurally sound, it just was an ordinary house that had been duplexed for 2 families and not real carefully maintained, on a lot big enough to cram 5 cheaply built 3-story modern units and charge $600-$700K a decade ago.

Here in Portugal, there are a lot of poorly designed residential structures, I guess because the economy picked up as the country emerged from a rather dark period and builders enthusiastically adopted more modern, less manual labor intensive construction techniques without a solid grasp of what they need to deal with the environmental conditions. Lots of mold, mainly. Some people who have managed to properly restore the very old houses of a century ago, in a way that respects the traditional design principles that evolved over centuries, report that they're exceptionally pleasant to live in. They're also very easy on the eyes, which is something we can't often say of new construction, but ... of course we can't afford the things our great grandparents could in this respect. Tubas either.

[TheDoctor]

Have nodes -and how twists, bore sizes, metal thickness, and dents effect them - been discussed in this thread yet? Since quantum computing is in our near future, I wonder if ai and simulations will be used to create the perfect sounding, feeling, and in-tune tuba that looks like a cross between Dr Seuss and Picasso trying to illustrate one.

Although I think that would be in the very distant future. I don’t think brass instrument design is high on the list for research by any entity wealthy enough to build such a machine.

[sweaty]

Defining "science" as "because an authority figure says so, and they did a really good job of convincing me" is how the Catholic Church defined "science" through and beyond Galileo's time.

Your knowledge of church and science could really use some enriching.

[bloke]

Defining "science" as "because an authority figure says so, and they did a really good job of convincing me" is how the Catholic Church defined "science" through and beyond Galileo's time.

>linked video<

Your knowledge of church and science could really use some enriching.

Your link is off-topic, in regards to the point I was making.

Those people listed in your linked video were religious people who were scientists/inventors, and not priests/cardinals/popes who ruled over The Church.

Galileo (nothing more than a congregant in his church ranking - just as those listed in your linked video) was no atheist, but "The Church" had developed
(in the very same way that today's quasi-religious "Church of Progress" has pulled false quasi-scientific constructs out of its rear over the last two are three decades)
quasi-scientific constructs - during the Dark Ages - which were (obviously) false, Galileo disproved them, and - as Galileo's claims-and-proofs challenged the infallibility of the The Church's church rulers - those who ruled over The Church persecuted Galileo. oh yeah: A whole bunch of "Church of Progress" catechism has found its way into organized religion, which - likely - is why organized religion's membership roles (at least in this country) has been dwindling.

Your video offers no wrong information, but - again - it's not on-topic with my point.

...If (??) you happen to be Roman Catholic (??) - and view my comments as derogatory towards Catholicism - the RC church has had a tremendous amount to answer for (from it's beginnings right up to this very year), but so does every single "demonimation" of Christianity which has split off the RC church (and subsequently split off from each other). Anything run by men is corruptible, and will eventually end up being corrupted. Power - over other human beings - is a corrupting force. All of us do Evil things, and most of us strive to resist the temptation. Some of us argue that government (over nations - or, at least, our nation) should be kept as small as possible, because the power involved in it is inevitably going to corrupt the human beings involved in it.

organized religion in general:
- I'm glad to be employed by it.
- If the preacher, organ grinder, and orange-vests outside (stopping traffic, so that the exiting congregants can get in line at the Sunday brunches ahead of those who were stopped in traffic) get paid, I'm going to expect to be paid.

the existence of something larger than myself:
- there's absolutely no doubt
- men could not have possibly made any of this
- space aliens (no matter how advanced) certainly could not have either
- the larger we look, the more organized we find the universe to be
- the smaller we look, the more organized we find everything here on earth to be
- intelligent design? obviously!, and - even if there's evolution involved in it - so what?

TO THE ORIGINAL TOPIC and my seemingly controversial previous comments:
- Whenever there's a really fine player here - in need of an instrument repair - I bring up the disagreement between those who believe that we use air to bang out lips together vs. those who believe that the air acts on our lips as it does a bassoon double reed or (even though very close - never touching) an oboe reed...and (even) pointing out that a jaw harp metal reed never touches anything - other than being fastened at the end - much as our lips or a double reed are fastened to other things.
To a person, NONE of them (including trumpet players - who leave a nearly microscopic space between their lips) believe that our lips are hitting against each other when we play brass instruments, and - fwiw - none of the single reed players (and again: I've only asked very fine players) believe that their single reeds whack against the tips of their mouthpieces.

[donn]

TO THE ORIGINAL TOPIC and my seemingly controversial previous comments:
- Whenever there's a really fine player here - in need of an instrument repair - I bring up the disagreement between those who believe that we use air to bang out lips together vs. those who believe that the air acts on our lips as it does a bassoon double reed or (even though very close - never touching) an oboe reed...and (even) pointing out that a jaw harp metal reed never touches anything - other than being fastened at the end - much as our lips or a double reed are fastened to other things.
To a person, NONE of them (including trumpet players - who leave a nearly microscopic space between their lips) believe that our lips are hitting against each other when we play brass instruments, and - fwiw - none of the single reed players (and again: I've only asked very fine players) believe that their single reeds whack against the tips of their mouthpieces.

The problem with the conversation you claim to have there, is that the A vs. B is distorted by your weird diorama. "Those who believe that we use air to bang our lips together" amount to not one single person, as far as I know.

If you need to believe that there's a one atom layer separating lips, reeds etc. because in your theology lips, reeds, etc. may not touch, fine - it doesn't matter one way or the other.

Why not? Because everyone agrees on the principle of sound production here, and the question of whether the lips, reeds etc. touch is just a detail. No one thinks it's the mechanism, and you should explain your persistent inability to see that to your visitors as part of the discussion.

[bloke]

Retriggering The Scientists and The Engineers always deserves bonus points, yes? They just can't stand for something on the Internet to be "wrong".

(I actually didn't read what they posted just now. I'm going on to the other threads.)

[Jim Williams]

I am one of a few people here with an FCC extra-class amateur radio license. Parts of the FCC tests involve antenna operations.

The parallels between feeding a tuba with wind and feeding an antenna with Radio Frequency (RF) energy are amazing.
Resonance, impedance matching, standing waves, etc.

Maybe some of the other radio types can get in on this discussion...Extra, General, or Tech!

FWIW, there is as much misinformation about the operation of antenna systems as there is about what makes the sound on a brass instrument.

73 de N9EJR