24
1 The Musician’s Experience of Brass Instruments
Armstrong’s mastery of articulation in both relatively slow and extremely fast
playing. Instruments capable of meeting the demands of this type of performance
are often described as responsive, reflecting the sensation of the player that the
instrument is an understanding and co-operative partner in the musical task.
The response of an instrument can be defined more technically as the speed with
which the instrument reacts to the initiation of a note by the player (Herbert et al.
2019). Any brass instrument sound begins at a very low level when the player’s
lips start to vibrate and builds up to its steady level over a number of vibration
cycles. The period of initial growth is called the starting transient (see Sect.2.1.1).
On a highly responsive instrument, the starting transient is short, and the threshold
pressure is low, allowing the player to sound the note promptly and with little effort.
Special techniques, such as double and triple tonguing, have been evolved
for rapidly interrupting and initiating air flow. Finger movement and trombone
slide movement generally impose greater limitations, and factors such as the mass
and distance of travel of piston valves and trombone slides can be significant in
determining the maximum possible articulation speed on larger brass instruments.
1.2.11 Wrap, Directivity and Ergonomics
‘Wrap’ means of the particular way the tubing is arranged: which parts are coiled or
straight (Fig. 1.16), the angle of the bell axis to the mouthpiece axis, etc. Many
instruments, such as the tenor trombone, have a conventional wrap used in the
vast majority of instruments; other instruments such as tubas display considerable
variety. Historically, the diversity has been even greater, with some instruments such
as valve trombones having the bell directed either forwards, upwards or sideways
(see Fig. 1.17). Since high-frequency components are radiated more strongly along
the axis of the bell of the instrument (see Sect. 4.6.6), trumpets in a band marching
towards a listener sound much brighter than they do if the band is marching away.
On the whole, however, the bell direction does not seem to be a consideration
of great importance to musicians. This may be because much performance takes
place in fairly lively rooms, in which reflections even out inequalities in dynamic
levels resulting from directional sound radiation. However some composers (notably
Mahler) occasionally ask orchestral brass players to perform with ‘bells up’ (i.e.
pointed directly out towards the audience), presumably to enhance the brightness of
the direct sound.
1 The Musician’s Experience of Brass Instruments
Armstrong’s mastery of articulation in both relatively slow and extremely fast
playing. Instruments capable of meeting the demands of this type of performance
are often described as responsive, reflecting the sensation of the player that the
instrument is an understanding and co-operative partner in the musical task.
The response of an instrument can be defined more technically as the speed with
which the instrument reacts to the initiation of a note by the player (Herbert et al.
2019). Any brass instrument sound begins at a very low level when the player’s
lips start to vibrate and builds up to its steady level over a number of vibration
cycles. The period of initial growth is called the starting transient (see Sect.2.1.1).
On a highly responsive instrument, the starting transient is short, and the threshold
pressure is low, allowing the player to sound the note promptly and with little effort.
Special techniques, such as double and triple tonguing, have been evolved
for rapidly interrupting and initiating air flow. Finger movement and trombone
slide movement generally impose greater limitations, and factors such as the mass
and distance of travel of piston valves and trombone slides can be significant in
determining the maximum possible articulation speed on larger brass instruments.
1.2.11 Wrap, Directivity and Ergonomics
‘Wrap’ means of the particular way the tubing is arranged: which parts are coiled or
straight (Fig. 1.16), the angle of the bell axis to the mouthpiece axis, etc. Many
instruments, such as the tenor trombone, have a conventional wrap used in the
vast majority of instruments; other instruments such as tubas display considerable
variety. Historically, the diversity has been even greater, with some instruments such
as valve trombones having the bell directed either forwards, upwards or sideways
(see Fig. 1.17). Since high-frequency components are radiated more strongly along
the axis of the bell of the instrument (see Sect. 4.6.6), trumpets in a band marching
towards a listener sound much brighter than they do if the band is marching away.
On the whole, however, the bell direction does not seem to be a consideration
of great importance to musicians. This may be because much performance takes
place in fairly lively rooms, in which reflections even out inequalities in dynamic
levels resulting from directional sound radiation. However some composers (notably
Mahler) occasionally ask orchestral brass players to perform with ‘bells up’ (i.e.
pointed directly out towards the audience), presumably to enhance the brightness of
the direct sound.