Got Balance? Got Blend? Intonation? take it from these guys

[cowtown]

Now I know how people feel when I use to show them a Drum Corps video and say, just watch this, this is cool

Please forgive me, I’ll never do it again (maybe)

and no offensive to barbershop singers or crossroads, they are great at what they do and all but its just not my cup of coffee

[84BDsop]

Now I know how people feel when I use to show them a Drum Corps video and say, just watch this, this is cool

Please forgive me, I’ll never do it again (maybe)

and no offensive to barbershop singers or crossroads, they are great at what they do and all but its just not my cup of coffee

It probably would've helped a little is a different clip had been posted. It was VERY well done, but not the best clip to show from a grabbing the interest standpoint.

Now the Ambassadors of Harmony clip of 76 Trombones...THAT was a grabber from the get-go.

[kickhaltsforlife]

Wow, can you PM me the name of your university? Or did I miss it? I'd like to start recommending it to everyone, lol.

West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

We do lack an acoustics course though. Which I realllllly wish we had. They used to back in the day. They are trying to get one back though.

[CrunchyTenor]

Every university has one, I'm sure. The question is: Does your university offer one to music students, that doesn't have all of the super-duper Calculus/Fourier Analysis/Mathematics behind it? My undergrad place (Oberlin Conservatory, '89) had a course specifically titled Musical Acoustics, dumbed down enough as an elective for eager music students. Some math is always involved, but nothing "worse" than ratios, exponents and logarithms...Algebra I stuff.

In that course, I learned:

-) Physics of open/closed pipes (ever wonder why a clarinet and flute are the same length, but clarinet is almost an octave lower?)

-) Inverse Square Law

-) Interference

-) Physics of Brass Instruments (tubes with bells and cupped mouthpieces; conical vs cylindrical;valves/slides)

-) Physics of Strings

-) Physics of each Woodwind instrument (tubes with keys/reeds; conical vs cylindrical)

-) Physics/tuning of a piano (extreme tension strings..why does a piano tuner use stretched octaves?)

-) Technical Definition of an Interval (a frequency ratio)

-) Technical Def of Equal Temperament

-) Technical Def of Cents

-) Technical Def of Harmonic Series

-) Technical Def of Just Intonation

-) Technical Def of Meantone temperaments (there are many)

-) Technical Def of/explanation for the difference between sound pressure (device measurable) and perceived loudness (human hearing...Gawd, every drum corps person needs to understand this!!!)

-) Basics of Fourier Analysis, Spectrum Analysis

I'm sure there's more, but that's the stuff I still think about--and incorporate into my teaching--today. In recent incarnations of the course, they take a "field trip" over to the big organ on campus, and do an "organ crawl" so everyone can see it work up close, and hear demonstrations of the various mixtures, etc, to bring all of the technical stuff into a real musical context.

Google (or wiki) each of those topics...information is lot easier to come by these days!

I would have LOVED to have taken classes like this! Before I changed my major to Music Ed, I had done a full year of physics in my previous major, and thoroughly enjoyed it. But to combine that with music application? WOW!

My brass methods instructor did his doctorate in acoustics. He always had something cool to say about how the brass instrument works in general, and then how the design of each instrument affects it's acoustics and quality of sound.

Garry in Vegas

[CrunchyTenor]

Double post, sorry!

Edited December 2, 2009 by CrunchyTenor

[Tito John]

I guess barbershop is one of those acquired tastes, but I think it's great...both the pure versions and the stuff like the polyphonic (or should it be contrapuntal?) tunes in "The Music Man."

I changed from a listener to an amateur performer in the late 70s in Singapore, when a guy who was a long-time member of the Alexandria Harmonizers of the SPEBSQSA was assigned to the US Embassy. He very quickly organized a barbershop chorus and I joined despite my lack of musical knowledge. That was three years of fun, marred only by the paucity of tenors, which forced the rest of us to tone down our chords so that all four parts could be heard.

It's interesting that there's been at least a bit of a revival of barbershop recently, especially with the OC Times. The group with the unpronounceable acronym has changed its name and, I gather from some Internet sites, has dropped its bias against newer songs. "Newer" may be relative -- OC Times does some versions of old rock songs on the album I bought that reignited my interest in barbershop.

[Toby]

Yep.

I'm lucky to be in a program where 4 semesters of aural skills, 3 semesters of choir, and 3 semesters of voice are required. Testing out of aurals is possible... but there is only one kid in the school right now who has tested out. The kid has a ridiculous ear, but no one challenges him, and it is disappointing.

And like I said before, everyone is to tuner dependent.

What are the odds of going for a Masters there?

[SynthLine09]

I'm sure any drum could sound like this if they were standing still too

*edit

they do sound fantastic, thanks for sharing

Edited December 2, 2009 by SynthLine09

[Toby]

-) Technical Def of/explanation for the difference between sound pressure (device measurable) and perceived loudness (human hearing...Gawd, every drum corps person needs to understand this!!!)

Would this following statement work with this principle:

"How loud do we sing/play/etc? In tune."

[Bruckner8]

Would this following statement work with this principle:

"How loud do we sing/play/etc? In tune."

we only covered the following facts:

-) Measuring sound pressure (decibel meter)

-) Humans perceive chords based on pure intervals (Just Intonation) as louder. (Spectral Analysis..more consonance, less noise) IOW, "expansion of sound"

-) Humans perceive low frequencies as softer, even when decibel meter says they are the same as higher ones

-) Inverse Square Law: Sound levels diminish with the square of the distance; even more pronounced in human perception.

So ya take all of that, march less tubas, put them in the back of the forms, and then wonder why you never hear them? No wonder drill writers are all for synths!

DVD certainly understands basic acoustics, he always uses lots of low brass, and he has the drill writers' ears: Keep them in the front or side of the forms if possible, AND ALWAYS ON THE HITS.

I'm certain Madison 2010 will blow people away, and I've never even met DVD. He "gets it" on the most basic truths of good outdoor brass effectiveness. I'm sure he wouldn't even waste his time if he thought the drill wouldn't be conducive to good sound.