Posted by Resso Nator on April 26, 2008 in reply to Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: buying a brand new horn......and playing it in.:
Take a horn, play it, measure it at 16 points in space in an anechoic chamber at 2 Meters distance than set it in concrete and do the same thing. There is sod all difference. Don't overestimate the resonant characteristic of a horn itself, it is a friggin tube with an air column that, when vibrated also vibrates and excites an acoustic. There is a complex feedback mechanism between what the player hears and what is consequently done in that acoustic. The horn itself is only a small part of this large acoustic phenomenon.
Why do so many players think of the horn as "the only thing that matters" when what is done with it in an acoustic is FAR more important and more devastating to the listener. Horn plus player plus room acoustic equals the actual total instrument. That's why a player who sounds great in a bandroom "can" sound crap in a concert hall!!!! Thus the saying "never judge a player by the way he warms up in the Paxman showroom" I suppose.
Such minute differences in how a horn responds to the player are important only in how she/he feels about it and plays as a result. This then influences a performance, possibly, but the list of small tweaks to horns, whether lacquer is good or bad, etc etc is boringly endless. Let's start a "my horn plays so much better after I put it in a cloth gig bag" thread! If it makes you feel better then do it, playing with no underwear at concerts gives a strange edge to the sound!!! For goodness sake, keep it to yourself!
Take a deep breath and have a bloody good blow, enjoy it, blow the shite out of some orchestral excerpts with some friends, it's a horn, a HORN, not a piece of bleedin Hi-Fi crap. The more you play it better you get, it doesn't get blow in, it gets dirty, wet and the air column resonates differently thus resonating the room acoustic differently, the instrument vibration itself does not put out enough signal pressure level to be significant to the listener, only maybe the player. Farting whilst playing may well be louder and more influential to all around you. But, I may of course be wrong :-)
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