Just for the record, I always praised your ability to design, create and market the products that you did. It is true that I don't agree with your conception of the acoustics of the sax, but that in no way changes my opinion of your mouthpieces.
Among the shakuhachi masters over here who make flutes, I'd bet not one has the foggiest conception of the physics involved, but that doesn't stop them from creating top quality instruments, and I doubt that there is anyone alive who knows the physics who could match their skills.
Toby
"ansermetniac" <ansermetn...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>>> Are you aware of what I do for a living? If you are, you are being >>> obnoxious or ignorant.
>>This is one of those either/ or deals that I can't agree with. "Do you >>want >>a kick in the nuts or a smack in the mouth ?" No thanks - none of the >>above >>!
>>It seems that whenever you are pressed for an answer to something you >>won't >>deliver. We're all here to discuss stuff and share information and >>knowledge. You drop a comment in and then won't back it up in any way. If >>you don't want to take part in a discussion, don't get involved.
>>I ask what you can contribute to such a debate not as an insult but >>because >>you don't reveal much in the way of useful information. Usually the ego >>seems to get in the way. (As here it would seem). I enjoy your info on >>players and such.
>>I'm very interested in what you might have to offer - but I've learnt a >>great deal more from others like Jon Van Wie (RIP), Toby and Stephen >>Howarth >>how are generous in sharing knowledge and handing out tips. I can only >>guess >>at what knowledge you have.
>>Steve M
> I gave my opinion. Toby and his crew told me I am full of shit, and my > accomplishments in the industry were pure luck. Toby backed off a > little but his crew did not. Believe me, the garbage that is being > passed off as reality the past week is laughable. Wait for my book > (written with Dave) to come out. I will not waste any more of my > efforts educating people in the practical physics of why a sax makes > a sound here.
I read that article and was convinced, with respect to flutes. It was a pleasure to find such a well-designed double-blind test. My point is that I'd like to see equally good experimental research on saxophones. I don't think you can conclude that what's true for flutes is true for saxes without actual research.
"Toby" <kymarto...@ybb.ne.jpp> wrote in message <news:41315ddf$0$49410$45beb828@newscene.com>... > Then there's my earlier post about the results reported testing four similar > flutes in silver, gold and palladium...
>No, you posed a question which I've queried and you won't respond. Toby >hasn't got anythign to do with my questions.
I am talking about a few months ago
>> and Toby and his crew told me I am full of shit, and my >> accomplishments in the industry were pure luck.
>Utter nonsense. You keep coming back to this sorry little chant, throwing >your toys out the pram. See above
>> I will not waste any more of my >> efforts educating people in the practical physics of why a sax makes >> a sound here.
>Good. Your wasting everyone's time with unsubstantiated little comments that >do little to educate.
No one here wants to be educated. Why else would they tell me I am full of shit. I think I know more than scientists who bever have designed a mouthpiece. BTW every thing I say is substantiated by my products. Question. Are you arrogrant or ignorant.
> > I think what you need of a mechanical player of some kind. There is one > > for > > brass instruments.
> These have been used.
Who by ?
> > Is it known for tiny variations in bore to make a horn noticeably brighter > > ? > > Or for tiny differences in manufacturing ?
> Absolutely. Read that Nederveen quote.
Nederveen discusses several instruments at once. I can see a small difference in bore making some difference on tone in a smaller bored instrument such as a flute or clarinet. (Clarinet bores do very from instrment to instrument but they rarely have a noticably brighter tone as a result).
On wider bored instrument like saxes a minor variation is going to have less of an effect. Dents for instance can have little effect on the sound. I doubt very much if the tiny differences found on machine formed sax bodies have enough of a difference to be responsible for such tonal variation.
> These will certainly make a difference, but a Conn still sounds like a Conn > and a Selmer like a Selmer.
Yes, because their bores are significantly different. The taper is different. Also they have quite different tonehole layouts.
I agree with you that one can't necessarily generalize. What you have to ask yourself is what might be different in the case of a sax. To my mind there is not much difference. I don't see any parameters that wouldn't scale linearly with the sax. However I may well be overlooking something.
Nederveen does mention that finishes or materials could make a difference in the vibrational modes of the sax bell, which is unsupported, and that this is an area which could use further study. That being said, the difference, if it exists, would likely be very small. Still there is room here for surprises.
There is a great difficulty in doing tests similar to Coltman's with saxes, in that identical sax bores are much more difficult to engineer than identical flute bores, which are cylindrical. In that very small changes of geometry can make a significant difference in the final sound and response it becomes extremely problematic to construct instruments in which bore differences would not overshadow differences calused by materials.
Here's a link to a paper I found which points to the possibility of materials making a difference by causing non-trivial elliptical vibrations around toneholes, which cause phase shifts, but its relevance to actual instruments being played has not been established--there's still room for research!
Here's another quote from someone who has read more than I have: "1) The walls of a flute do not participate measurably or noticeably in the sound production. Benade aside, still living acousticians such as Coltman have done much to validate or dispel statements about gold or silver or platinum or various alloys of these metals. Coltman did some fascinating double blind tests of different metals against each other, and against some oddball materials (including cardboard and concrete). No contribution to the sound making process.
2) People who have done work on other woodwinds (including sax, which has the highest ratio of enclosed airspace to metal mass of any woodwind) and brasswinds like trumpet and French horn (Fletcher, Nedervee, Coltman, Rossing, sorry about the spellings) have gotten similar results. Including some published papers utilizing nearfield acoustical holography and vibration sensors mounted on the walls of the horn."
On the other hand Benade makes comments that seem to indicate that wall materials can make a difference in a number of ways, although he doesn't quantify anything:
|From some reading on the web it seems that many experiments are planned for investigating the actual real-world effects of wall materials on tone, so perhaps in the next few years there will be better information forthcoming.
Toby
"Glenn Spiegel" <effective_websi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> I read that article and was convinced, with respect to flutes. It was > a pleasure to find such a well-designed double-blind test. My point is > that I'd like to see equally good experimental research on saxophones. > I don't think you can conclude that what's true for flutes is true for > saxes without actual research.
I think I finally got your point. I agree that differences from horn to horn in bore and setup are more significant than differences, if any, caused by materials. I'd still like to see experimental research on materials, though. There are reasons other than sound for using different materials, such as durbability or light weight. How about lightweight bari made of titanium or carbon fiber?
Seems like there are studies in the pipeline about materials now. I'm an agnostic on the question really, it just seems from what I have read that materials really don't make much difference to the sound, which is completely contrary to what I took to be their obvious effects for many years.
Having been this "converted" it pains me to see people assuming that the differences they experience between horns must come from the materials. A lot of it is just urban legend--like the fact that you'll never get a horn as good as an immediate postwar Selmer because they used brass from exploded shell casings...And its pretty hard to buck the tide--go to almost any manufacturer's website--even those of top makers like Haynes and Powell and Miyazawa flutes, and you will get an earful about the "rich" sound of gold, or the responsiveness of platinum..even though they don't always agree on the characteristics different metals impart they all go on about it at length.
It seems like they should be the authorities, but the evidence doesn't seem to be there. I remember when I bought my first Haynes flute I tried a gold one at the same time. Actually the silver one was better. I once had a wooden Haynes and in comparing it against a silver Haynes of the same era there was no real noticeable difference--although both were very different from my modern Powell.
A friend passed on a story about the great flutist Georges Barrere, whom he met many years ago at Baxter Northrup in Studio City, Calif--a famous hangout for musicians in those days.
He walks in--just a teenager--in awe of the Great Man, and old man Baxter says, "Hey Fred, you ever seen a platinum flute before?", and there on the counter is the platinum Haynes that had been made specially and presented the Barrere.
Fred said it looked like aluminum but it was heavy as hell. He put it down and said, "That must be a great flute Mr. Barrere!"
And Barrere leans over and says "Et ees terrible, one of the worst flutes I ever play, but I must because I promise to Haynes." He had been given the flute free in a deal where there could use him for promotion--all of the ads from the period say "Makers of the flute played by Georges Barrere".
So I'm not telling anyone that they have to believe what I believe, only that they shoud understand what the research shows and apply that knowledge and make up their own mind. And I have to admit that I get a little tired of posting the same stuff over and over again ;-)
Toby
"Glenn Spiegel" <effective_websi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>I think I finally got your point. I agree that differences from horn > to horn in bore and setup are more significant than differences, if > any, caused by materials. I'd still like to see experimental research > on materials, though. There are reasons other than sound for using > different materials, such as durbability or light weight. How about > lightweight bari made of titanium or carbon fiber?
Here is a suggestion for an experiment that could be performed tomorrow. Get 10 new Selmers, have them set up by a professional tech. Blindfold a test subject, a pro sax player. Label the horns. Have him play them all and note 'characteristics'. Shuffle the order of the horns and have him play them again, noting characteristics. The test question - do different horns of the same make/model have different characteristics that can be reliably determined by a player.
On 02 Sep 2004 15:24:16 GMT, wdflann...@aol.com (Wdflannery) wrote:
>Here is a suggestion for an experiment that could be performed tomorrow. Get >10 new Selmers, have them set up by a professional tech. Blindfold a test >subject, a pro sax player. Label the horns. Have him play them all and note >'characteristics'. Shuffle the order of the horns and have him play them >again, noting characteristics. The test question - do different horns of the >same make/model have different characteristics that can be reliably determined >by a player.
Sure they have differences - in fact, Selmers more so than most other makes.
Reliably determined? No. They can BE determined, but each player will find different differences.
I guess this happens to me pretty much every day, when a client comes in to collect a horn.
Regards,
-- Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations www.shwoodwind.co.uk Emails to: showard{who is at}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk
> ..... the article says there is no discernable difference in sound between a > silver flute, a heavy copper flute, and a wood flute. None whatsoever.
Jim says:
I respect John Coltman a great deal but the test mentioned above in not valid because a plastic head joint was used for each separate body material. Almost all the tone comes from the headjoint and so what you get are three different flutes that all sound like plastic no matter what they were attached to. Of course they couldn't hear the diff! But make the headjoints out of diff material such as metal, wood, and ceramic and you will get three different tones, blind tests and all. The tone of wood is dramatically different than metal, there is no ring to wood, its just not there. A good metal head joint will ring like a bell but no wood headjoint ever has or ever will. I'll take anyone on with a metal/wood flute blind head joint test. I am confident because I have already made this test. To refer to the Coltman test as truth and to pass it on does everyone a disservice. Is sad to see intelligent people accept this as science. Before anyone makes such a statement such as "material makes no difference whatsoever" they should make the test themselves. Hearing is believing (blind test or not). Before any flute player/scientists respond to this, please be honest and tell us if you've compared the tone of wood flute head joints to metal.
And what about plastic saxes? Isnt it easy enough for everyone to hear the diff? You can hear the difference by listening to Ornette Colman or playing one yourself (same MP of course). There is no metallic ring to a plastic sax, instead they sound like (you guessed it) plastic and so they are not popular.
I tried a beautifully made ceramic flute at the last National flute convention. The entire flute and all the keys were carved from ceramic solid on CNC machines. The accuracy was impeccable and the implications for the future are a wake up call (perfectly made and interchangeable keys). But the ceramic body and headjoint sounded like crap from top to bottom. There was no weight to it and the tone was thin and weak.
> On 02 Sep 2004 15:24:16 GMT, wdflann...@aol.com (Wdflannery) wrote:
> >Here is a suggestion for an experiment that could be performed tomorrow. Get > >10 new Selmers, have them set up by a professional tech. Blindfold a test > >subject, a pro sax player. Label the horns. Have him play them all and note > >'characteristics'. Shuffle the order of the horns and have him play them > >again, noting characteristics. The test question - do different horns of the > >same make/model have different characteristics that can be reliably determined > >by a player.
> Sure they have differences - in fact, Selmers more so than most other > makes.
Exaggeratedly true of new Selmers - I think this is intentional, because neckpipe designs (e.g. of the Ref 54 necks I've seen, and Series III necks as well) seem to be more "either/or" than on a continuum.
> Reliably determined? No. They can BE determined, but each player will > find different differences.
Agree, although with 54's most players would find similar differences in terms, especially, of resistance and larger-warmer core versus denser-heavier core.
Of course, someone with poor tone production, even who has great fingering technique, might not be aware of any of that.
"jim" <jse...@cvip.net> wrote in message > > I respect John Coltman a great deal but the test mentioned above in > not valid because a plastic head joint was used for each separate body > material. Almost all the tone comes from the headjoint and so what > you get are three different flutes that all sound like plastic no > matter what they were attached to. Of course they couldn't hear the > diff!
Interesting nobody mentioned that before; of course, you're right.
> And what about plastic saxes? Isnt it easy enough for everyone to
> hear the diff? You can hear the difference by listening to Ornette > Colman or playing one yourself (same MP of course). There is no > metallic ring to a plastic sax, instead they sound like (you guessed > it) plastic and so they are not popular.
Maybe so, but I happen to love the sound Ornette got out of the plastic alto.
> I tried a beautifully made ceramic flute at the last National flute > convention. The entire flute and all the keys were carved from > ceramic solid on CNC machines. The accuracy was impeccable and the > implications for the future are a wake up call (perfectly made and > interchangeable keys). But the ceramic body and headjoint sounded > like crap from top to bottom. There was no weight to it and the tone > was thin and weak.
Too bad to hear that; seemed like a great concept. I'd like to see how the ceramic keys feel on a metal flute.
Craig Rasband
"Swing is one of jazz's great gifts to humanity. Don't screw it up." - John Goldsby
There once was a gentleman who played alto sax. He was a wonderful player. He could read any chart you threw in front of him perfectly. Great, flexible tone able to go from classic Mule to in-your-face Parker in an instant. His ability to interpret style and blend was without peer. He never wrote an original line of music, never really understood music theory.
There was another gentleman who lived nearby. He could not play sax, in fact he couldn't really play any instrument (well, he could plonk out a tune on a piano if you had the time to wait). He spent his days composing beautiful music. Incredible melodies on top of chord changes that were perfect. He wrote these full arrangements in longhand and never needed to add corrections. Full orchestra arrangements!
The sax player looks at the composer and says, "He isn't a musician. He can't play a note! How can you say you understand music if you can't produce it?" The composer looks at the sax player and says, "He isn't a musician, he can't write a simple melody! How can you say you understand music if you don't understand theory?"
> No one here wants to be educated. Why else would they tell me I am > full of shit. I think I know more than scientists who bever have > designed a mouthpiece. BTW every thing I say is substantiated by my > products. Question. Are you arrogrant or ignorant.
>There once was a gentleman who played alto sax. He was a wonderful >player. He could read any chart you threw in front of him perfectly. >Great, flexible tone able to go from classic Mule to in-your-face Parker >in an instant. His ability to interpret style and blend was without >peer. He never wrote an original line of music, never really understood >music theory.
>There was another gentleman who lived nearby. He could not play sax, in >fact he couldn't really play any instrument (well, he could plonk out a >tune on a piano if you had the time to wait). He spent his days >composing beautiful music. Incredible melodies on top of chord changes >that were perfect. He wrote these full arrangements in longhand and >never needed to add corrections. Full orchestra arrangements!
>The sax player looks at the composer and says, "He isn't a musician. He >can't play a note! How can you say you understand music if you can't >produce it?" >The composer looks at the sax player and says, "He isn't a musician, he >can't write a simple melody! How can you say you understand music if you >don't understand theory?"
>> No one here wants to be educated. Why else would they tell me I am >> full of shit. I think I know more than scientists who bever have >> designed a mouthpiece. BTW every thing I say is substantiated by my >> products. Question. Are you arrogrant or ignorant.
Mark Bushaw wrote: > There once was a gentleman who played alto sax. He was a wonderful > player. He could read any chart you threw in front of him perfectly. > Great, flexible tone able to go from classic Mule to in-your-face Parker > in an instant. His ability to interpret style and blend was without > peer. He never wrote an original line of music, never really understood > music theory.
> There was another gentleman who lived nearby. He could not play sax, in > fact he couldn't really play any instrument (well, he could plonk out a > tune on a piano if you had the time to wait). He spent his days > composing beautiful music. Incredible melodies on top of chord changes > that were perfect. He wrote these full arrangements in longhand and > never needed to add corrections. Full orchestra arrangements!
> The sax player looks at the composer and says, "He isn't a musician. He > can't play a note! How can you say you understand music if you can't > produce it?" > The composer looks at the sax player and says, "He isn't a musician, he > can't write a simple melody! How can you say you understand music if you > don't understand theory?"
> >No, you posed a question which I've queried and you won't respond. Toby > >hasn't got anythign to do with my questions. > I am talking about a few months ago
Why ? You keep going back to an old issue instead of dealing with now.
> No one here wants to be educated.
One of the main reasons I'm here is to learn more about saxes and players etc. I've spent several years at college learning repair and acoustics. When you leave college you aren't an expert. They don't hand on knowledge of all the instruments produced and all the players - you have to try and do what you can to learn. In the process of pickign up information I'll argue about certain things to see how valid something may be. I got it wrong about reed vibration, for example. With the help of Mark and others I was made to realise what I was getting wrong. Now I'll never get that wrong again.
> Why else would they tell me I am > full of shit. I think I know more than scientists who bever have > designed a mouthpiece.
I would say you are probably one fo the top mouthpiece engineers around. That doesn't make you an expert on acoustics. By your own admission it is Dave that does the magic. People will challenge your ideas/ theories just as I challenged the idea of how the reed vibrates. If your answers don't make sense or you won't explain the process or the reasoning it will bring the validity of your statement in to question.
I'm all too well aware of how valuable experience is. My first customer was a guy with as many letters after his name as were in it. He had some admirable qualifications but told me it didn't matter a damn, it was what you experience was that counted. Someone like a MP maker is going to know more than any scientist about his work. The scientist will have the qualifications. They don't (as far as I know) hand out doctorships in mouthpiece making - so I can fully understand you greivance against those chaps that say they know what's what.
There was a guy called Richard Rokstro who wrote a book, 'a Treatise on the Flute' (I think). he was quite vitriolic about a certain flute maker who saying his methods were wrong. That maker was Theobald Boehm who's scientific approach to flute making had a profound effect !
Science has virtue because it tests a hypothesis. The basis of science is the experiment. Now you may say your ideas have been tried and tested, which is true. You've made mouthpieces that work. The idea that, say lacquer makes a difference ot the sound of the sax is a different idea that is non-essential to mouthpiece making, so it doesn't follow that making mouthpieces will give you the answer.
Let us test the idea that lacquer makes a difference to the sound of a sax. Take a frequency counter/ analyser and play some old sax. Go and paint it, no getting the paint on mechanism or toneholes and play it again taking a reading. If there is a difference in sound you can tell at what frequency, what harmonic and to what degree. This test excludes any difference from one sax to another. People can often spot a difference. It isn't a difference that matters, it is what causes it.
It is the nature of man to challenge truth. We want to find answers. We want to know if the world is clockwork, if god pushes the sun up every day, if the world is round - or if a lick if paint has some acoustic properties.
> Here is a suggestion for an experiment that could be performed tomorrow. Get > 10 new Selmers, have them set up by a professional tech. Blindfold a test > subject, a pro sax player. Label the horns. Have him play them all and note > 'characteristics'. Shuffle the order of the horns and have him play them > again, noting characteristics. The test question - do different horns of the > same make/model have different characteristics that can be reliably determined > by a player.
Why ask someone ? People have opinions and can have difficulty remembering etc. Are senses aren't reliable. Shout in someone's ear. Are they going to complain ? It depends on background noise. If you are on a platform with a train going past they need to shout ! What about optical illusions ? We are not great devices for testing things.
For proper analysis you need a frequency counter. They can be set to look at harmonics and so on and give a reliable readout of the components in a sound and their intensity.
Just one more small point re: Coltman's plastic head joints--If you are going to posit that the wall materials affect the sound then it it a bit contradictory to say that "almost all the tone comes form the head joint." Isn't this akin to saying that almost all the tone from the sax comes from the neck and mouthpiece? So you could put a Selmer neck on a Grafton and have a Mk VI sound?
In fact if materials are shown to make a difference it may well prove that the materials of the body are much more important than those of the neck or head joint, because it is where the bore is no longer round, such as at the boundaries of tone holes, that the body might vibrate elliptically.
The slight restriction of the head joint radius near the top does make a difference in partial content of the sound--no one denies that--and the geometry of the embouchure hole plays a large role in how the air jet oscillations develop and how well they couple with the air column, but the oscillations within the length of the headjoint do not differ in intensity or frequency from those in the body tube, so I don't see how you can state that the tone comes primarily from the top of the air column, i.e. the head joint.
In Coltman's experiment, if you read carefully, the plastic heads were very short compared to normal flute heads--5.1 cm of the flutes' total sounding length of 37.8 cm or about 13.5% of the length. One could reasonably say that the difference between the materials would be 13.5% less than it would be if flutes were made entirely of the body material only, but not much past that.
It is important to realize why Coltman did that--he mentions that the heads were all made with a special reamer to ensure uniformity. It would have been virtually impossible to have created the needed tolerances (at least without CNC) in the differing materials--especially in the thin metal tubes, and this would have also provided a tactile clue to the players in the double blind test.
I don't think that there is any problem with Coltman's methodology, aside from the fact that potential effects of wall material differences might have been reduced slightly by the short plastic heads.
I'd say s/he might well be able to tell differences consistently in a blind test--if the differences were large enough not to get lost in the noise of expectations, thinking about that hot number at the front counter, wondering about tomorrow's gig and wondering "how many times are they going to make me play these bloody horns?"
Actually ten seems like a lot to try to keep straight. How about three?
And assuming that s/h/we can tell differences reliably between those three horns what does that tell us? Not much more than we can reliably tell the difference between a flute a clarinet and an alto sax.
The real question is what causes the differences that we can discern, and with that we arrive right back at the materials vs. geometry debate.
Toby
"Wdflannery" <wdflann...@aol.com> wrote in message
> Here is a suggestion for an experiment that could be performed tomorrow. Get > 10 new Selmers, have them set up by a professional tech. Blindfold a test > subject, a pro sax player. Label the horns. Have him play them all and note > 'characteristics'. Shuffle the order of the horns and have him play them > again, noting characteristics. The test question - do different horns of the > same make/model have different characteristics that can be reliably determined > by a player.
> I respect John Coltman a great deal but the test mentioned above in > not valid because a plastic head joint was used for each separate body > material. Almost all the tone comes from the headjoint and so what > you get are three different flutes that all sound like plastic no > matter what they were attached to. Of course they couldn't hear the > diff! But make the headjoints out of diff material such as metal,
This will come as no surprise to those here (including Toby I believe) who have been saying that material of (and lacquer on) the body makes minimal difference to the sound of a saxophone. I think most people agree that the main differences in sound is from the mouthpiece shape and material.
Best regards
Pete Thomas - www.petethomas.co.uk *********** On-line saxophone exercises, composition and jazz theory courses *********** Saxophone Instruction DVD http://www.dvdsource.co.uk/products/13001595 *********** To reply privately please use the link on my site.
On 2 Sep 2004 12:02:42 -0700, jse...@cvip.net (jim) wrote:
>I respect John Coltman a great deal but the test mentioned above in >not valid because a plastic head joint was used for each separate body >material. Almost all the tone comes from the headjoint and so what >you get are three different flutes that all sound like plastic no >matter what they were attached to. Of course they couldn't hear the >diff! But make the headjoints out of diff material such as metal, >wood, and ceramic and you will get three different tones, blind tests >and all. The tone of wood is dramatically different than metal, there >is no ring to wood, its just not there. A good metal head joint will >ring like a bell but no wood headjoint ever has or ever will.
I fail to see why they wouldn't hear a difference if there was one to be heard. The whole point was that the head used provided a known standard. You can bung a desperately cheap mouthpiece on an assortment of saxes and still notice a difference in tone between different makes and models. What we don't know was how good the head joint was.
> I'll >take anyone on with a metal/wood flute blind head joint test. I am >confident because I have already made this test. To refer to the >Coltman test as truth and to pass it on does everyone a disservice. >Is sad to see intelligent people accept this as science. Before >anyone makes such a statement such as "material makes no difference >whatsoever" they should make the test themselves. Hearing is >believing (blind test or not). Before any flute player/scientists >respond to this, please be honest and tell us if you've compared the >tone of wood flute head joints to metal.
The comparison is a useless one in terms of the materials debate simply because the bore surfaces are entirely different. An interesting test is to try a lined wooden head - which was a popular manufacturing technique in the late 18th century.
>And what about plastic saxes? Isnt it easy enough for everyone to >hear the diff? You can hear the difference by listening to Ornette >Colman or playing one yourself (same MP of course). There is no >metallic ring to a plastic sax, instead they sound like (you guessed >it) plastic and so they are not popular.
That's another specious argument. The Grafton was and is a crappy horn, and it has its own distinct sound. I really don't believe anyone played a Grafton because it sounded and felt great - it was simply because it looked drop-dead funky.
Simply making horn out of metal doesn't guarantee a 'metallic ring' - many of us have played examples of horns that have been so dry and stuffy that the only way you'd get them to 'ring' would be to hit them with a hammer. If metal imparted a ringing quality as a matter of course, every horn would exhibit it.
I think Steve M mentioned Jack Brymer performing on a plastic clarinet...and no-one was able to tell the difference. And what does that say about Buffet's Greenline series of clarinets, not to mention the rare and wonderful ebonite Boosey 926's?
It's not sufficient to point to a material and condemn it out of hand because it doesn't have any pedigree - and the fact that modern composite instrument can and do sound excellent points up the importance of design.
>I tried a beautifully made ceramic flute at the last National flute >convention. The entire flute and all the keys were carved from >ceramic solid on CNC machines. The accuracy was impeccable and the >implications for the future are a wake up call (perfectly made and >interchangeable keys). But the ceramic body and headjoint sounded >like crap from top to bottom. There was no weight to it and the tone >was thin and weak.
I see no reason why a ceramic flute shouldn't sound good. Bad design is bad design, making the exact same flute out of any other material will still result in a bad flute.
Right now, the closest thing we have to the Star Trek replicator is the Yamaha production line - and yet take any dozen YFL221S flutes and you'll find tonal difference between them ( though how much that will be discernible to the listener is another kettle of fish ). Same metal, same pads, same manufacturing process - but a fraction of a millimetre's difference here and there makes all the difference in the tone.
Get a good one and it'll outperform many an intermediate silver bodied flute.
Regards,
-- Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations www.shwoodwind.co.uk Emails to: showard{who is at}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk
FYI see link below for an experiment that shows different acoustic spectra from titanium vs. silver flutes. Although mechanically produced airstream was used to eliminate player variables, there is no assurance that the two flutes were otherwise truly identical.
> FYI see link below for an experiment that shows different acoustic > spectra from titanium vs. silver flutes. Although mechanically > produced airstream was used to eliminate player variables, there is no > assurance that the two flutes were otherwise truly identical.
