By the way, brass instruments are named according to their open fundamental tones (in concert pitch), not necessarily according to the usual transposition (or lack thereof) of their sheet music. For example, the Bb trumpet’s main tubing is a little over 4.5 feet in length, yielding a fundamental pitch of concert Bb2 (116.54Hz), while that of the F horn (and the F tuba, incidentally) is around 12 feet, yielding a fundamental pitch of concert F1 (43.65Hz). The mathematical formulas undergirding all of this are fascinating, but thoroughly understanding them is not necessary for successfully applying the concept to brass playing and teaching.įor our purposes we need first of all to understand that each brass instrument is built with its open bugle the precise length needed to produce a certain fundamental pitch. The terms harmonic series and overtone series refer (interchangeably, if imprecisely, in brass players’ parlance) to the principle in acoustics in which musical sounds (or any sounds really) are understood to be complex tones consisting of vibrations not only at a certain fundamental pitch level but also constituent vibrations at certain mathematically expressed levels above that pitch. Understanding the harmonic series and how it applies to each brass instrument might seem complicated at first, but once understood it is a tremendous shortcut to finding fingerings (particularly alternate fingerings) and tuning tendencies on all of the brasses. Furthermore, the tuning tendencies of the different partials are the same for all brass instruments. The reason for this is simple: while particular instruments will have a few quirky notes that depart from the norm, as a rule all the notes in each partial will behave in the same way. The director is usually looking for some version of a chromatic fingering chart that shows tendencies of individual notes, but I always respond by sending a harmonic series chart with tuning tendencies indicated for each partial rather than each note. At least once a year I receive a call or email from a band director asking if I have a tuning tendency chart for trombone, euphonium, or tuba.
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