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Re: [Phys-l] musical instruments



If you happened to watch "Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037" on PBS TV, you realize that each top-notch grand piano is built significantly by hand, and adjusted by hand, and has its own personality. When buying such a piano, or when a concert pianist is not transporting his or her own personal piano, the musician tries several and perhaps many instruments before selecting "the one." I did this when I bought my Yamaha C7B (7'4" grand piano). That was a very significant investment, and there was no way I would buy such a piano without playing it for a while.

On the other hand, none of my trumpets were handpicked. My relations with trumpets began in 5th grade with a Conn Director, and changed to a Conn Constellation in high school and for college. When I bought my son a Bach Strad I also bought myself Yamaha YTR-6335S. These are both considered "professional trumpets" although not "top-end" professional trumpets. A few years later, after playing both mine and my son's, my daughter asked for her own Yamaha. This means that at one time I had 5 trumpets in my house, and two of them were "identical" Yamaha YTR-6335S.

All of these trumpets were different to play. The Yamaha's were the closest to each other, but still different. Although all five of these were a moderate financial investment at the time I bought them, it did not seem at the time that it was worthwhile to go to a store having several so that I could hand pick "the one." I sometimes wonder if I should have done that. A former trumpet professor here at Bluffton said he would definitely hand pick a trumpet costing over $2000, and maybe even if it were a $1000 investment, because his experience was that most manufacturers had a fair amount of variance in their horns. He also said that his experience with Yamaha trumpets was that they did not vary as much, although they do vary some.

Thus, Barney's comment (below) seems appropriate from my experience.

Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu



-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu [mailto:phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of Ricca, Bernard P
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 12:26 PM
To: phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] musical instruments

Mike,

---- snip ----
Not having built any brass instruments myself, I am just guessing that early instrument manufactures had to experimentally determine the correct flare to make an instrument that could be played in tune. At instrument manufacturing/design companies today, I do not know if the proper flare is theoretically calculated, or if it is experimentally determined. Does anyone on this list know?

---- snip ----

The answer is "both". The flare serves more than one purpose, and, IIRC (my notes are not easily accessible, and it has been several years since I paid attention to this) you can determine some theoretical shapes (e.g., a "Bessel" flare) that, to a first approximation, are pretty good for the generation of a harmonic series. These are then tuned experimentally to account for curved tubing, desired tone, etc.

Barney

Bernard Ricca, Ph.D.
Director, Graduate Program in Math, Science and Technology Education Department of Mathematical and Computing Sciences Saint John Fisher College 3690 East Avenue Rochester, NY 14618
585-899-3866 (Office)
585-899-3872 (FAX)
bricca@sjfc.edu