Sound Experiment

[healey.cj]

Jim,

those frequency Analysis' are quiet intresting..!

Chris

[Derek Reaban]

Jim,

I definitely need to play a 2nd line G and post my plot to compare with yours. This first thing that I notice is that you have posted the Log Frequency (2nd Plot) for the same horn twice (for the Leblanc I believe).

I read the decibels from your two plots and quickly put them in the same format as what I did for in an earlier for the High C. Here are your plots on the 2nd Line G for both horns:








The significant difference seems to be the “shape” of your sound on the two horns. It appears that you are ringing the sound right where the horns want to play (the resonant center) - Look at that characterisic "hump" which shows the 2nd through 4th overtones stronger than the fundamental! Based on a subjective appearance of the curves, your sound seems to be brighter on the Leblanc (4th overtone is the strongest) and the Harrelson shows a more “complete” sound (3rd overtone is the strongest and only the 5th overtone appears to not fit the curve whereas on the Leblanc the 5th and 6th overtones seem to be “weaker” than the curve would suggest for an “ideal” player).

Clearly I’m just making guesses here, but it’s fun to see some new plots. I’ll bet you sound great on both horns!

Thanks for posting your results!
_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Symphonic Wind Ensemble / Symphony of the Southwest

[Jim-Wilson]

Derek,

Thanks for the look at the spectral patterns I posted. I must have gotten my screen captures mixed up in my graphics program - you're right the log analyses are identical. I did capture both but didn't keep them to correct my mistake (my hard drive is way too cluttered as it is).

It is interesting to me how I have overtones in the initial series that just "drop off" even though different between the LeBlanc and Harrelson horns. I have a LeBlanc 7C mouthpiece that I may play with and see what that does through the initial overtone series.

I do think working for and producing the semi-sinusoidal pattern will be representative of the most centered, relaxed tone a player can produce. It is probably the best "place" to go to do differential evaluations between players and their equipment. I hope others will take the time to try to produce that and post some analyses with the semi-sinusoidal pattern. If it turns out that this is reproducible across players and equipment, it may provide a reference point to look at spectral analyses in a new and productive fashion. It would be great if we could interest some grad student to pick this ball up and run with it. Anyhow...

I actually have a new Harrelson horn coming in the next week or two I'm buying from Jason. He has a 909 conversion of a new "old" 636 Yamaha that he had been playing on before he produced his "Ebony" horn. Anyhow, I'll do some more comparisons when I get it and also some between my GR mouthpiece and and LeBlanc 7C. But, that may be a few weeks.

Jim

[Hipster]

Something else you two may want to do is play the same note at your own self perceived volume and then average those samples. The next thing to do would be to normalize those plots to the total energy, i.e. divide the spectra by the integral of the whole spectrum. That should make it more possible to compare two different scenarios, horns, mouthpieces, players. Doing the averaging would also tend to make things better, then you could go all technogeek and also show the variances about the mean (average) spectra.

[Jim-Wilson]

Hipster (and others),

Audacity is free. Virtually all of us have soundcards and a reasonable microphone. I'd really encourage you to play with things yourself and share with the forum. There is a lot of collective wisdom out there. True, some of us are "amateurs", but even if there's a whole body of knowledge about this out there, we'll all learn by collectively going through this little process of exploration. Also, we may actually contribute something useful.

So, with that said, go for it!

Jim

[richardwy]

Derek and Jim,

I'm looking at Jim's "Leblac" plotting of his 2nd line G. Decibles are designated in a range from -30 to 0. What's a "minus" decible?

Also, is Jim's 4th vertical bar from the left labeled "G" measured at -4 dB (or so) his 2 line G?

I also took a peek at the plotting of a high C on the previous page. There, in Derek's case, the 1st bar on the left labeled "C," was the tallest. Does that bar correspond to high C?

And the remaning 9 vertical bars, removing the bar detailing dB's for the note being played (2nd line G or high C) represent the overtones that "color" the 2 pitch frequencies?

Thanks for posting this. Once I figure out how to read it and see how it corresponds to "what was being played," it'll be easier for me to wrap my head around it.

Richard

[richardwy]

Derek and Jim,

I'm looking at Jim's "Leblac" plotting of his 2nd line G. Decibles are designated in a range from -30 to 0. What's a "minus" decible?

Also, is Jim's 4th vertical bar from the left labeled "G" measured at -4 dB (or so) his 2 line G?

I also took a peek at the plotting of a high C on the previous page. There, in Derek's case, the 1st bar on the left labeled "C," was the tallest. Does that bar correspond to high C?

And the remaning 9 vertical bars, removing the bar detailing dB's for the note being played (2nd line G or high C) represent the overtones that "color" the 2 pitch frequencies?

Thanks for posting this. Once I figure out how to read it and see how it corresponds to "what was being played," it'll be easier for me to wrap my head around it.

Richard

[Derek Reaban]

Richard,

Thanks for your questions. I can certainly understand that this can be confusing coming in on the middle of the conversation.

[Derek Reaban]

I found an old post that I think is worth including here related to overtones (I’ve modified it a little bit). This was in response to a person asking a question about being able to actually hear the individual overtones in a specific player’s sound.

Everyone easily and clearly hears overtones everyday, but more as a "package" than as individual pitches. The harmonic overtone structure is what provides instruments with their characteristic sounds. Why is it that a trumpet and a clarinet and an oboe all playing the same pitches sound different? Well, it has to do with the varying strength of the overtone series produced by each instrument. If someone had a tone generator and a graphic equalizer and could increase the decibel level of certain overtones and decrease the decibel level of other overtones the “quality” of the sound would vary accordingly. This "mixture" along with the quality of the front end of the note (attack) provides the unique sound characteristics of any specific instrument.

In a post on page 4 of this topic I included a picture of the characteristic overtones of the trumpet, and the 3rd through 7th overtones have a greater amplitude than the fundamental – with the 7th overtone having the greatest amplitude.



Compare this to the French Horn graph:




As individual players we all have our unique sonic signatures. While the characteristic sound of the trumpet is based on unchanging principles of physics, our individual ability to ring the different overtones (i.e. how well centered a note is and how vibrant our chops are) varies greatly from player to player. We all play on center to different degrees even different from note to note in some cases (we all strive for an "even" sound) based on the maturity level of the player and the complexity of the music on the stand.

Here's an example (very timely for me since I woke up to fog in Phoenix/Tempe a few days before Christmas). Let's consider the ability to play to the center of the sound is related to moisture content in the air (humidity). We know that there is moisture in the air, just like we know that there are overtones in a trumpets sound, but most of the time we can’t see it. Consider these three examples:

1. 25%-50% Humidity - Players that aren’t quite in line with their instrument or play with some degree of harmful tension could be compared to the humidity in the air in the desert of Arizona (single digit for many months of the year and very low for the other months). They may sound like a trumpet, but it’s a very dry sound, missing much of the quality that you would hear in a professional’s sound.
   
2. 70%-90% Humidity - Great players who have really found the ability to center could be compared to the humidity that they get in say Houston or Corpus Christi, Texas in the summer. They have a VERY present sound, in much the same way that you can FEEL the high humidity.
   
3. 100% Humidity - There is one player in 10,000 that plays so centered that they ring ALL of the overtones with such great strength that you can almost hear the overtones individually, much like you can see the moisture content in the air when you have fog (100% humidity).

Fine players come in all different degrees of centering. I have heard stories of some players with such vibrant sounds that they can actually hear the individual overtones (and I have experienced this with several players myself), but this player is the rare exception. They are certainly working with a much stronger signal than the rest of us. We can all strive to find more center in our playing (this can take years or decades!).

I personally want to achieve FOG!
_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Symphonic Wind Ensemble / Symphony of the Southwest

[Jim-Wilson]

Derek,

Great post and great analogy. I'm off on a trip right now and don't have time to expand things too much. But, I would like to mention how useful I think it would be to have a "database" of spectral analyses from varied players of varied abilities on varied equipment. At some point it would be great to be able to discriminate the "best of the best" when it comes to spectral patterns in regard to resonance. Also, you really want to categorize and evaluate the 4th graders and all those in between. My thought is that the fine points of progressive improvement in resonance be objectively quantified in a fashion that a players recorded sound can be "scored". If a plug-in for Audacity could be written which would allow such a scoring system to be implemented by any player that chose to use it, it would provide for an objective evaluation of a player's growth in regard to resonance in his tone. This would provide motivation to the individual player and could also be used as a study tool to evaluate pedagogical methods. This would obviously relate almost exclusively to only one aspect of playing - resonance. But, it is an important aspect of playing.

I can remember as a Freshman in Jazz band in High school (about 40 years ago) sitting next to a Senior who had this luscious, full sound every time he played any note. I'd just listen and sometimes turn my head and think "why don't I sound like that"? I didn't have a clue about resonance. It would be a great service to every developing trumpet player from Grade school on to have a tool which made him aware of the issue of resonance and provided the opportunity to document his improvement over time. At the risk of sounding corny I'll share with you all my acronym for the software I have envisioned in my mind.

P - Program for
U - Useful
R - Resonance
E - Evaluation of
S - Sound for the
T - Trumpet

I noted a thread about "pure" sound that I haven't looked at yet but will ASAP. My thought, though, is that a "Pure" trumpet sound is not one consisting of only a fundamental (else it wouldn't be a trumpet sound), but rather, one that has the maximal blend of overtones that the horn and mouthpiece allow.

Anyhow, it will probably be next Tuesday before I have time to post more but I plan to expand on the foregoing then. Hope you all don't mind. If you do, just buzz on by my posts.

Jim

[prof5]

Fascinating thread!

Garry
(resumes lurking)

[Derek Reaban]

Jim,

You wrote:

[Derek Reaban]

Now, as far as making it fun and user friendly, check out this post that I made on the Trumpet Master site in reference to a game that I found online (I’ve posted it below). I think a game like this could be developed for a host of standard excerpts and lead charts in a big band, and you could “play” against the opponent of your choice (i.e. Mr. Herseth on Pictures or Wayne Bergeron on O Holy Night). And then you’d get a score for your efforts and a picture or graph for where things went astray:

Mr. Herseth – 95 MPH, Derek – 68 MPH.

With 13 notes for the Promenade, perfect score might be 130 points for example (10 points for each note), and even the best of the best players would be hard pressed to get to that “perfect” score. With musical liberties, and the elements that make something beautiful instead of just perfect, a “perfect” score may not be the goal. Instead, raising the awareness of pitch, time, and quality for the developing playing with a fun game and providing a way to measure progress would be the idea.

Try this game and you’ll see what I mean.

Fun Superman Camera Game

I find a lot of parallels with the Superman game and trumpet playing. You get lots of points when you “center” each picture, but Superman is moving so fast that centering becomes very challenging. The same is true with playing our horns…A great centered sound is what we all want but when tempos increase or the music becomes more challenging, the percentage of the time that many of us get great centered notes goes down.

When “centering” becomes more consistent, the best score is given for pictures that are well framed against prominent landmarks in each city. Aesthetics, in addition to simply “centering” becomes the goal. Also, (how many of you read the instructions?), zooming in and out leads to a perfect 10/10 on pictures if the picture is also centered and aesthetically “front page material”. Of course when the zoom is turned on, it becomes that much more difficult to get a really great picture, but the risk is worth it when a perfect shot is made. Just like a fine artist, taking a risk to make the music sing!

When a skilled artist navigates a flurry of notes that, at first would seem impossible to many players, the impossible is turned into magic!

I thought anything more than 120 points on this game was just about impossible, but with a little practice, knowledge, and improved skills, I had my best run. I thought about my “fine instrument” (a desk top with a mouse) versus Lara’s “student” laptop and a touch pad. Equipment can clearly help a fine artist achieve more consistent musical results.

Anyway, here it is…

Look at that Metropolis shot! 170 baby!


_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Symphonic Wind Ensemble / Symphony of the Southwest

[richardwy]

[Jim-Wilson]

I've had opportunity to produce a few more image captures of spectral analyses today which I'll post below with some explanation. Following these I'll make some more comment about them and my thoughts on establishing the "criteria for the most resonant tone" to be used in software spectral analysis presentation.

This afternoon I played a G in the staff once again and then did a lip bend flat and then sharp in one continuous tone. I then captured spectral analyses of the centered tone, flat tone and sharp tone in order to give some visual comparison of the spectral analysis of each tone. I played my LeBlanc T357 with a GR E65C* mouthpiece again. Jason Harrelson has been very gracious and is actually building a new horn for me rather than sending me the previously mentioned Yamaha 636 with his 909 conversion. I'll post some comparative spectral analyses when I receive the new horn. I will say it was much easier for me to get a pretty looking resonant spectral analysis on his demo horn than on my LeBlanc. Anyhow, I'll post the analyses below.

The G tone with areas of spectral analysis sampling marked is presented first. BTW, I capture just a .1 sec portion of the tone for analysis. Also, I pretty much max out the software settings for the highest sampling rates possible. If anyone's interested I can post those details later.

The G Tone


The Centered Spectral Analysis


The Flat Spectral Analysis


The Sharp Spectral Analysis


If you'll notice the "Centered" analysis you'll see the previously described semisinusoidal pattern though not quite as pretty as some of my previous attempts - especially compared with the Harrelson horn. But, you can see that I continue to be able to produce this pattern. Comparing with the Flat and Sharp spectral analyses you can see the definite difference with the semisinusoidal pattern being absent from the flat and sharp analyses. Also the higher overtones are just about dead in the flat and sharp lip bend tones.

Also notice that the initial overtone progression in the Flat pattern is actually more prominent than in the Centered pattern (that is the 4th overtone has the highest decibel reading - I was attempting to play the same dynamic throghout but lip bending certainly affects this). This makes me wonder if overtone progression through the first set of overtones is going to be the best discriminator of a fully resonant tone. Admittedly, this progression is absent in the Sharp analysis pattern. But, I do think it does indicate the need for someone to really spend a lot of time evaluating spectral analyses to fully establish the criteria for a fully resonant tone.

Another whole other area of thought for those of you who might really be into the trumpet/player physics geek thing is the issue of what produces the semisinusoidal pattern in what I'm convinced is my most resonant tone. I don't have the background in acoustics/physics/math to do anything more than conceptualize about this. But, my "guess" is that this has a lot to do with the pressure feedback to the lips from the horn that produces the surface deformations you can see on high speed lip videos (several sites have these and I've posted links previously). A "gated"/time synchronized high speed lip video with time synchronized spectral analysis might be very informative in looking at this. For those that are doing lip model research, the semisinusoidal pattern may be a real clue as to possible mathematical descriptors to further refine lip model research. Anytime you see significant reproducible symmetry in natural systems it's a clue that there's something there to be studied. I haven't found anything on the net that addresses (or even acknowledges the existence of) this semisinusoidal characteristic of spectral analysis of resonant tones (I'm not saying no none has looked at it - I just haven't found their work).

Anyhow, I do hope others will continue to give these things significant thought. If there's a trumpet grad student out there into physics/acoustics, give these things some thought. If I were 30-35 years younger with a great math/physics background and lab resources, I'd go for it.

Derek, I really do appreciate all the effort you put into all your posts and contributions here on TH. I look forward to your further contributions - and maybe a "resonance" game/competition someday. I fear it will be like playing Scrabble with my wife - I'll usually (if not always) be on the losing end!

Jim

[prof5]

[Jim-Wilson]

Garry,

I'm at work right now so can't "double-check" all the settings in Audacity but will do so tonight. I'll also play with dropping back on the high end settings to see what effect that has. We (especially those of us that are older) certainly aren't going to hear anything over 20kHz. But, as an analysis tool, the higher overtones beyond human hearing may actually tell us something about the overall quality of the resonance generated by the player/trumpet. But, I don't know that. That's part of the reason I think it would be great if a bunch more people or some grad students in a true lab setting would look at these issues.

Jim

[Derek Reaban]

Jim,

This is about as far as I think I can go with the “game” concept. It would take someone with real programming skills to make this happen, but here is my idea on “paper”.

Based on the many albums / CDs that have been made of Pictures at an Exhibition, a “baseline” could be selected of your favorite player from a professional recording. This would form the template that would be used in this game.

You would be given a tuning chord to align your instrument with the baseline recording. Then you would receive the count off and play the first 13 notes of the Promenade into your microphone. When you were finished you would receive the following graph of your playing compared to the professional player. I superimposed the “Superman Returns” camera just for fun!

Look at the connection between notes for the professional player and how great the time is (the red line begins exactly at the left side and goes all the way to the right side - rhythmic integrity). Intonation is almost perfect on every note (the horizontal line in the middle of each frame is ideal), and the “sonic signature” that we have been discussing in this topic would be the characteristic graph with the hump around the 2nd to 4th overtones (the ideal shape).



For the student’s recording, I showed a rendition that is quite marcato with separation between notes. In this way the student doesn’t get full credit for note duration in the score. Rhythmic Integrity is quite good overall, except for the early change on the slurs up the F. The intonation of the Ds is quite low, and the overall “sonic signature” of the note, while good, is not the same vibrant, ringing, resonant sound of the professional player.

Here’s an idea of how each individual “frame” might be scored. Duration and Intonation would be easy (i.e. be in the box on the horizontal line). Quality would need to be determined based on the shape of the curve. Maybe the area under the curve would be a good measure (higher scores are only possible when the 2nd and 4th overtones are stronger in magnitude than the fundamental – i.e. setting up more area under the curve).



Based on this printout from the recording, the student could easily see how to fix the intonation (which notes are particularly bad) and focus on lengthening the note values to make it sound much closer to the pros recording.

The power in this game would be quantifying the quality of the note. After playing this game, the way to target improvement would be through dedicated lone tone practice working from the best sound in your middle register and working both up and down in register without forcing in any way. This practice technique would allow the student to score much better on this game and scores could be saved (say every six months) to show progress.

This could be set up on the ITG web site, and everyone could play! If you wanted, you could submit your score, and look at the high score for the day, and highest score of all time. Now that would be fun!
_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Symphonic Wind Ensemble / Symphony of the Southwest

[Hipster]

Cool idea Derek. What happens when two pros have differing sonic signatures?

[Jim-Wilson]

Garry,

I haven't had time to do any new sound samplings so will just paste the Audacity settings I've been using. I'll try to do more later.







Derek,

You definitely have a gift for thinking and presenting your ideas. I certainly understand the limitations, though. I expect it may take someone of the level of the Smart Music folks to do what we'd like to see. It certainly is within the range of a grad student collaborating with some software junkies in an academic setting but somebody has to develop the interest and passion for it.

I'll post more in a couple of days to share some other ideas "for the record" in the event someone, sometime picks up the ideas presented on this thread. Thanks again for all your efforts.

Jim