charts, graphs, and things at which I tend to look askance

[bloke]

Whether it's a weakness of mine or whether it's a strength (ie. classical skepticism, yet even beyond, as classical skepticism claims that it may be better to remain skeptical - rather than rely on reason, and quite a few of these things -to me - aren't reasonable), I find that - when a topic is something such as "what do you like about the way that passage was played?", "do you like the way so-and-so sounds", "I like this type of sound", or other such esoterica...

...when then assaulted by some discussion participant with (off-topic) "charts and graphs", I find that I must suppress the "someone is trying very hard to buffalo me or - perhaps - themselves" reaction.

Here's (ok...heck...Maybe there actually IS something to some of these types of things...??) an example of that sort of thing:





I've also noticed (over a half century of playing gigs with others) that - the finer, more accomplished, and more musical the player (yeah..."in my opinion") the less likely they are to have any of these sorts of things (opinionated adjectives avoided) on-board their instruments (as well as the less likely they are - when brass players - to be using massive/bulbous/chunky mouthpieces or other detachable components which have been swapped out for more massive or more gadgety ones.

I also believe that I witness an epic quantity of cause/effect confusion (particularly in wind instrument playing) whereby changes that occur (in materials or - again - attached appliances) often simultaneously accompany other (interior - actually sonically affecting) changes...with yet even other changes being brought forth by the power of suggestion (whereby a player - believing that an appliance is going to affect change - immediately puts more energy into their own efforts (loudness, stepping up their game, paying more attention to what they're doing, etc.)

[Colby Fahrenbacher]

There's a difference between being skeptical and choosing to be ignorant. Being skeptical leads to asking great questions like:

- how researched is the science behind this?
- how biased is the information I am receiving?
- how large is the data set?
- can I independently verify this work?
- how does the peer review look?
- is there a wide disparity between the claims being made and the user response?

Being ignorant means immediately disregarding any data set provided without justification or refusing to attempt to provide one of your own, while simultaneously refusing to ask any of the above questions solely because your limited, personal experiences have led you to believe otherwise.

This ignorance makes it difficult, if not impossible, for one to be receptive to having their world-view challenged in any way. I've known wonderful musicians who swear by their LeFreque, but I would love to see any data (beyond their marketing data) that isn't based on the popularity amongst the limited number of people you interact with (just like I said in response to your unsupported rants about orchestras).

[smitwil1]

Reminds me of the sound coil (or some name like that) that was advertised in the T.U.B.A Journal back in the early '80s. It disappeared and I've never heard of anyone ever using one.

In the vein questionable physics, a flutist in an AF band that I played in back in the '90s came up with the idea that wind needed to be "swirled" down his flute to achieve a better tone. He drizzled oil into it and twirled his flute around to form a spiral of oil down his headjoint...and halfway through the rehearsal his lips swelled up from irritation by the oil and he had to leave to ice his lips. In a cruel irony, we were rehearsing the Robert Russell Bennett arrangement of tunes from "My Fair Lady", which now features a tune entitled "I've Got a Flute Stuck on My Face*".

* for those too young to have ever played/heard the musical, it's a play on the Learner & Loewe song "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face"

[bloke]

...I just won yet another $5 bet, whereby part of the bet involved a time factor.

[MiBrassFS]

Acousticoil by Don Novy!

It was like a plastic shotgun choke… fer yer horn!

[smitwil1]

Dang! MiBrassFS got it...I plumbed the depths of my drek-filled brain to find that name and came up with nothing (well, nothing worth bringing up in polite company). bloke--was your bet on how quickly that the Acousticoil would come up in discussion?! What was your time/number of posts until it came up?

Bill

[MiBrassFS]

...I just won yet another $5 bet, whereby part of the bet involved a time factor.

Whomever made that bet must $5 bills to Burn(s)!

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

[MiBrassFS]

Dang! MiBrassFS got it...I plumbed the depths of my drek-filled brain to find that name and came up with nothing (well, nothing worth bringing up in polite company). bloke--was your bet on how quickly that the Acousticoil would come up in discussion?! What was your time/number of posts until it came up?

Bill

I am a wealth of useless knowledge!

[bloke]

...I just won yet another $5 bet, whereby part of the bet involved a time factor.

Whomever made that bet must $5 bills to Burn(s)!

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

Burns Nicht celebrations (across the world) will be this-coming Saturday.
(b. January 25, 1759)
I'll be attending one. I'm considering testing out a bit of haggis on my valve casings...
...If benefits are perceived, I should probably go on to experiment with different proportions of
sheep liver/heart/lungs and oatmeal...
Something else to consider would be whether covering up the serial number - vs. leaving it exposed -
offers more or less of any beneficial effects.
Once I've run enough tests (whereby benefits would possibly be perceived), I may - then - go on to research the
development of a synthetic haggis, which - as with McDonald's fare - wouldn't deteriorate over time.

[MiBrassFS]

Burns Nicht (across the world) - for most - will be this-coming Saturday.

Look at you with the useful knowledge.

Haggis, neeps and tatties all around! And maybe a wee dram of whisky…

[bloke]

Burns Nicht (across the world) - for most - will be this-coming Saturday.

Look at you with the useful knowledge.

Haggis, neeps and tatties all around! And maybe a wee dram of whisky…

You just walked into an interesting and perhaps somewhat-analogous topic...
...the "single-malt" snobs
- When "scotch" is brought up, they report to only like single-malt Scotch whiskeys...
...YET they often cannot name a single one that they "like", nor why they like it.
bloke and scotch:
Some - to me - are heavenly, whereas some are borderline disgusting.
"Scotch" (the designation) simply refers to "any whiskey made in Scotland" and nothing any more specific than that.
I personally can't name very many single-malt scotches, because many are pretty expensive, and the only ones of which I've partaken have been those generously shared by others, and a few (amazingly/generously) gifted to me (sometimes as an expressions of "repair gratitude").
There are also some plenty-expensive wonderful blended scotch whiskeys (sometimes whereby a distillery's primary-or-only formula involves blending - either with another distillery's or with their own other-scotch).
I'm pretty happy (being an unapologetic pedestrian) with some of the better-yet-affordable Johnnie Walker scotch, such as "black" or "green".
The super-expensive Johnnie Walker "blue" (to me...??) is almost too "smooth".
OK...I admit (and many others love to hate them) to liking some of the longer-aged and somewhat smoother JW scotches...but (in contrast) here's another lower-priced/blended scotch whiskey (gifted to me one time in the past) called "Black Bottle" which (upon sipping it) I relegated it to use for sterilizing my barbecue-chopping block (yes, really...and I've used other bad-tasting-to-me gifted whiskeys for the same purpose).

Compared to the other graph, check out how this graph's arcs are bumpy, prior to eventually ending up caught in that steel clamp...
CLAMP...!?!? ...but... !!!

[Finetales]

The Lafreque is pretty obnoxiously marketed in such a way that it seems like snake oil. If all they said was "adding mass to key spots on an instrument affects things, here's a thing to add mass to a key spot on an instrument", people would get what they're actually about. It's not magic, it's not voodoo, it's just a weight.

I thought they were snake oil myself until I tried one (on a double horn), and it did make a significant difference. Not in the sound that came out of the bell or even response, but how the partials locked in. With the Lafreque installed the high partials became much more secure and easier to go in and out of, enough that (non-Lafreque) people listening noticed an immediate difference. Was it enough to make me want to spend a not-insignificant amount of money on one and fiddle with it all the time? Absolutely not. But it DOES make a difference.

[bloke]

I have a prototype mouthpiece (made on my crappy lathe, are all my mouthpieces, and by me: a super-crappy lathe operator) with a not-perfectly-tapered shank. I like the mouthpiece tons, but it doesn't seat perfectly.
For now, I'm (conservatively) "digging" it into the receivers of the two instruments with which I'm testing it, but not much - as I don't wish to "jack" the receivers of my tubas' (properly-tapered) receivers...

...I'm looking forward to having several of these (for myself and perhaps for others) made on a state-of-the-art lathe (by a state-of-the-art machinist), and with a properly-tapered shank.

I can imagine that - were I to use that device to clamp this mouthpiece against a receiver (prior to having a proper version of this mouthpiece fabricated) my experiences with this mouthpiece might be even more enjoyable...and - by the same token - an old/compressed clarinet mouthpiece cork - with the mouthpiece clamped to the barrel - could - reasonably-imagined-and-maybe-even-probably - do the same thing...eliminating any subtle rattle/motion by better securing a worn-cork mouthpiece (or even in the common case whereby a plastic/hard-rubber clarinet mouthpiece's rear outer dimension is a bit too small for a given barrel, and a fat-enough cork still fails to eliminate rocking) to the barrel...

...but those things (supposed in the previous paragraph) don't seem to be the things which are claimed, and - seriously - ending a graph with the arc (where it's not particularly clear - at least, not to me - what the graph is supposed to represent) being trapped within a depiction of a steel clamp...

...but I really only chose this one due to the "interesting" graph comparisons. In the past, I've brought up the (decades ago) stepped mouthpipe tube fad, someone else mentioned the plastic springs, several of us have reminisced about the (yes, really) piece of wood that the player places in their pocket which - via claims - improves the playing of the instrument...and there are quite a few others things which (arguably) could affect things, but (particularly with tubas) are mighty subtle things... I'm aware that I'm not going to convince anyone (who embrace any of those sorts of things) that it's THEM making a better effort - rather than the little thingie which they're crediting.

[jtuba]

@Colby Fahrenbacher

I tried to ask some of these questions and do some independent testing at Midwest, several years ago and their tuba artist working the booth didn't want to offer me one to try. I then asked him to do an A/B comparison for us as he has the device attached to his fourth valve slide on MW 2182 F tuba and he declined. Oh well

[UncleBeer]

I had a similar response to their rep who was "courting" me at TMEA (fellow vendor); desperately wanting me to endorse this thing. I asked him to loan me one for several weeks and I would give him my opinion. He declined.

Oh well.

[kingrob76]

Declining to allow for demonstration / testing prior to endorsement is the reddest of red flags.

[ronr]

I've also noticed (over a half century of playing gigs with others) that - the finer, more accomplished, and more musical the player (yeah..."in my opinion") the less likely they are to have any of these sorts of things (opinionated adjectives avoided) on-board their instruments (as well as the less likely they are - when brass players - to be using massive/bulbous/chunky mouthpieces or other detachable components which have been swapped out for more massive or more gadgety ones.

I hope this doesn’t apply to Blokepieces…

[peterbas]

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[peterbas]

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[peterbas]

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