Re: Re: Re: Re: Does any euphonium tech know the length?


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Posted by Klaus on January 08, 2001 at 03:30:28:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Does any euphonium tech know the length? posted by Klaus on January 08, 2001 at 01:57:28:

Any more or less private internal joking between the retired (assistant?) professor and me aside:

There are calculations and theories that are helpful when planning tubelenghts for brass instruments. But they only can be guidelines, maybe even only rough such ones.

That easily can be seen among trombonists. The playing style of some leads to "short" positions, while other use longer postions. Both parties playing in tune.

Is the combined tubelength the same when a low B natural is played either on 7th position or on the F-valve plus long 2nd position? Played to the same tuning of course

In some euphs and BBb tubas the 4th valve is of a larger bore than the other valves. Is the combined tubelength on mid-low C the same when played 1+3 (plus slide pull for good intonation) or when played with 4th valve?

This to hint that variations in bore create deviations in intonation/tubelength, that are hard to calculate even using the 12th root of 2.

As I remember it, Joe S. in this forum has suggested to make tuba slides a bit longer than proper calculations would indicate, because he has experienced the benefits of doing so.

On trombone I play with longer positions than most players. On my euph my main tuning slide trigger has a shorter play, than the calculated needs for getting low C and B natural in tune. But the notes can easily be played in tune by means of the trigger.

So calculations are only guidelines, even if we can make them with lots of digits on our computers.

Luthiers and brass designers/makers even simplified the calculations to rather simple fractions in pre-computing days. Some still do so.

Brass instruments building is less than an exact science. Hence the large specter of models differently selected from by each player. Even at the very top levels of quality, there are a few models. There might be a choice more common than others, but not all agree.

Klaus


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