Re: Brass Instruments

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>]

> As a former professional trumpet player with a dozen years playing in
> a symphony (8 as lead), I can assure you that materials used do make a
> difference.  Beryllium bells sound different than silver bells (coated
> metals on trumpet bells).  A Colichio trumpet intended for jazz lead
> made from brass so soft that you can bend it in your hands would be
> laughed out of the concert hall.  It has been popular with french horn
> and trombonists to remove lacquer from their bells - they feel it
> makes a difference.

I did not say that surface smoothness has no effect on sound. I am
sceptical about detectable differences ascribable to the different
surfaces of brass and silver instruments. I do not doubt anything
you say here, but most of it is irrelevant to my modest claims
which, it appears, you are disputing.

As a professional experimental physicist I can only cite physical
measurements done on instruments. The most striking of these is the
experiment I cited in which a trumpet (perhaps it was a cornet) was
encased on its surface with modeling clay, certainly a gross change
in material stiffness and mass density from the underlying brass,
and no difference was perceived by musically sophisticated auditors
listening blind. As you are also likely familiar with experimental
protocols, please tell me how you controlled for variables other
than material differences in the comparisons you make above.

I did not say there are no differences between, for example, sound
produced by silver plated flutes and gold flutes. I did mean to
imply that I have heard of no experimental differences attributable
solely to material differences, and as a former teacher of a course
in the physics of music (several times) with an enduring interest
in the topic I have read some of the *physical* literature.

Leigh