Posted by Klaus on March 09, 2002 at 12:23:14:
In Reply to: Pedal? posted by Kenneth Sloan on March 09, 2002 at 10:57:44:
Another terribly long posting:
To me pedal notes invariably are the notes from the open 1st partial and downwards. Which makes the term instrument-specific.
I think it was Austin, who recently had a question on the board about coughing. I did not enter the thread then, but it has great relevance in the pedal note matter.
Music often is considered an expressive art. When it comes to the musician's relation to his instrument, I consider music as much a tool for qualified body introspection and for body control.
I have problems with arthritis and astma, which both tend to stiffen up various body parts. Externally and internally.
If I should/shall be able to play winds at all, I had/have to start every practise session with loosening up. Not by doing gymnastics, nor by doing yoga. But by taking inspiration from yoga in so far, that it is important to obtain an internal balance, where no single parameter is neither contra-productive, nor passive. Either by actively supporting the airstream or by giving the optimal (non-obstrusive, right volume, right tangent) passage and ressonance. The key to that is to know and apply the right vowel-thinking. Which is different from language to language when it comes to notation. A quite unlikely inspiration of my younger years was the famous double interview with soprano Joan Sutherland and mezzo Lena Horne.
Claude Gordon wanted to built upwards range, and he did so by making a wide and well controlled low range the foundation for any other aspect of playing. On Bb trumpet he told of the triple pedal to be possible (2 octaves below the open 1st partial). I find him to be right when it comes to trumpet and alto trombone. The larger instruments can not go as low relatively. Because the limit of human hearing is around the pedal Eb of CC and BBb tubas (= the open double pedal of an Eb tuba). With my modified PT-50 this low Eb is not really difficult on my .689/.693 Eb and .734/.750 BBb instruments.
But bore certainly is a factor in accessability for the pedal. I have done a good deal of low horn plaing. On my Conn 28D the open pedal F, and even a few more lower notes, were/are possible. Whereas the same note is next to impossible (at least for me) on my Conn 14D with its much narrower throat. Same mouthpiece, a modified Gardinelli J4.
You had the the buzz question up recently. You did not find my suggestion of your beard the right answer. It still probably is the right answer. Try to investigate, whether all of your embouchure has the same level of contact to the limit of oscillation, which should be the edge of the mouthpiece rim. It this is not the case, there very likely will be a discontinuity in the activation of the desirable lip oscillation. Which will be sensed as well in the sound as in the feel of playing.
Smoothness is an ideal. Hardly fully obtainable. With the discrepancy between ideal and reality being the factor we call personality or character.
The brass playing, that ever sounded closest to the ideal in my ears, was the Black Dyke Mills brass band in Royal Albert Hall of London back in 1978. My co-listening band fellows marvelled over the extreme level of control. I found the sound without any expression, downright boring. Yet I am fighting to achieve the same goal. And Nirvana has not been reported to be a bacchanale.
To Austins coughing question I would say, that there can be medical reasons. Which I will not discuss. But in the strive to obtain the wind passage ideals mentioned above, one can make a lump a tissue take up an pattern of oscillation of its own, which can constitute a major mechanical irritant. Which in turn will trigger a coughing.
Klaus