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Range and powerful sound through embouchure nodal points


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etc-etc
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 8:47 pm    Post subject: Range and powerful sound through embouchure nodal points Reply with quote

I believe the change between partials is achieved, by some of the trumpeters, by creating nodal points in the embouchure. With firm corners and no extra nodal points, you will excite the fundamental (or one of the pedals, as embouchure has several modes of vibration - vertically and horizontally). Introduce one nodal point in the centre of the embouchure - you will excite the next partial up and so on. Akin to playing flageolets on a guitar. No effort if done right, however, "born naturals" have this ability from the start, and everyone else has to learn.

The alternative approach is to reduce the oscillating area of the embouchure by "clamping", "firming up" and so on. With the reduced oscillating area, the efficiency of sound generation decreases and thus the notes get progressively weaker as one ascends above the staff.

In contrast, in a "nodal point" embouchure the oscillating area is almost the same for the higher partials as it is for lower partials - thus, the high range is powerful and brilliant, as we use our acoustic transducer to its full capacity.

How exactly does one create the nodal points will depend on the school of embouchure training - we have many forums on TH dedicated to the embouchure formation. And yet, they all should have one point in common - for a beautiful effortless sound and full range, the player must create embouchure nodal points.
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stumac
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 2:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is a bit esoteric for me at the moment. I will have to have a lot more research and thought into this.

My experience is that the more relaxed I can keep my chops the better the sound and power throughout my range, wether this is creating a nodal point at the lips I have no idea.

Regards, Stuart.
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Jetrang
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 2:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

what is a nodal point ?
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Matt Graves
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 5:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have read the terms "Node" and "Nodal" applying to points or sections within the vibrating air column within the brass tubing of trumpets, cornets, trombones, tubas, etc. Also, heard the terms applied to sections of vibration with violin and guitar strings.

Is your application something that you read in someone elses writing or are you attempting a new application of this concept?

Lip tissue vibrates in response to the air column set in motion under pressure from the human body. Are your "nodes" within the air column only "pre-lip" so to speak or are you only refering to applying a violin or guitar string idea to vibrating lip tissue or both?
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 6:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I believe this is a new application of the concept - I have not seen this is writing or heard about it from anyone else.

A nodal point is a point of no motion. Imagine a string fixed at two ends. With a string - embouchure - excited in fundamental mode (first harmonic), every point in the strings moves, except the endpoints. Introduce a damping point in the exact middle of a embouchure, preventing the excitation of the fundamental. That damping point is a nodal point. The string can be still excited, but in the next partial (second harmonic). Introduce instead two equally spaced damping points and you will get the third harmonic, as first and second harmonic are suppressed. The ascending thus is done by damping the oscillation in appropriate locations, not by compressing or clamping the embouchure.

The "nodal point" embouchure oscillates in almost entire available area - except in the vicinity of the nodal points. Compare that with a embouchure that becomes progressively narrower as one ascends above staff (tightening/clamping) - the area available for oscillation is reduced as one ascends. In the extreme high range, the clamped embouchure is very inefficient - imagine a pinpoint embouchure that tries to excite the oscillations in the horn. The "nodal point" embouchure, in contrast, represents a collection of pinpoints across its entire area, moving in a sympathetic (phase-correlated) fashion - that is what allows powerful sound in the high register.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 7:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not going near this one; it would take too much time, and I have to go to work!
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Craig Swartz
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 8:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

From the results it appears you don't have very many proponents here so far... To me, what you are suggesting is that a violin bow would also have its own nodal points, rather than being the instrument that sets the string into motion/vibration. While an embouchure and violin bow may not operate in the same manner, they do serve the same function when one compares finger pressure and bow speed to embouchure firmness and wind effort.

I will say, however, that when playing a mouthpiece alone around D3 or so, I can jam the thing very hard into my face and the pitch will raise (uncontrollably) perhaps a 5th, putting the actual tone somewhere around an A above "high C" on a Bb horn. In actual playing in this manner, however, I'd last about 3 minutes. God luck with your research- we could all be wrong.
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John Mohan
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 12:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

etc-etc wrote:
I believe the change between partials is achieved, by some of the trumpeters, by creating nodal points in the embouchure....


Another theory from another overly lip conscious trumpet player...
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Nonsense Eliminator
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 1:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No.

It seems that you want to make an analogue to a vibrating string. Three observations: First, sounds with a wavelength shorter than the inner diameter of a trumpet mouthpiece are only audible to dogs. Second, the sound waves in a trumpet travel along the length of the instrument, not across the lips. Third, how in heaven's name would you stop certain points on your lips from vibrating? Given that we routinely play to the eighth partial and beyond, would we have to have eight or more nodal points?

In other words... no.
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tptmed
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 1:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nonsense Eliminator, once agin you are the voice of reason. However, when you say how are we supposed to make different parts of our lip stop vibrating, I have no problem with that.
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 4:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here is an illustration of nodal points on a string, by Dr. Nick Drozdoff:


Link


The film of Dr. Lloyd Leno about the trombone embouchure (transparent mouthpiece):


Link



Link



Link


At the end of the last segment, Dr. Leno discusses embouchure multiphonics (not the sing-along multiphonics) with the player creating a double embouchure - one smaller and one larger. This is of course an intentional double buzz. The nodal point divides the embouchure into two asymmetric parts.

I assume a symmetrical double embouchure would allow playing higher up with more resonance.

The videos are all played well below the high trumpet range and at most, at F dynamics. I do not think transposing them one to two octaves up (in sound analyzer software) would yield anything close to a lead trumpeter playing a double C at FF. In other words, they may not be indicative of trumpet playing.
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Nonsense Eliminator
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 9:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

etc-etc wrote:
At the end of the last segment, Dr. Leno discusses embouchure multiphonics (not the sing-along multiphonics) with the player creating a double embouchure - one smaller and one larger. This is of course an intentional double buzz. The nodal point divides the embouchure into two asymmetric parts.

Is that the part where he says, "This phenomenon, along with all other aspects of lip vibration, should convince us all that the brass embouchure, the way sounds are produced, cannot be compared closely to double reeds or vibrating strings"?
Quote:
I assume a symmetrical double embouchure would allow playing higher up with more resonance.

That you assume that is obvious. Why you assume it is less clear.

As for me, I assume a symmetrical double embouchure would result in a gigantic Stay Puft Marshmallow Man wreaking havoc on New York City.


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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 12:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Richard,

Thank you - that was an excellent point (Marshmallow Man and what you wrote about the size of the mouthpiece and the corresponding frequencies).

The problem with representing the embouchure as a vibrating string is obvious now that you have posted your comments.



Let us now go to the opposite extreme - represent the embouchure as a double door on hinges with springs that ensure the return of the door to its resting position (recall the saloon doors in the Wild West movies or in the picture above). As the air pressure builds up on one side and overcomes the spring, the door opens. An air puff escapes and goes into the mouthpiece. A backward puff of air arrives from the horn and together with the spring, closes the door. The backpuff now finished, the pressure builds up, the door opens again and so on.

For this system, a stable vibration mode is achieved by synchronization of closing of the door with the arrival of the backpuff of air from the horn. These stable modes correspond to the formation of standing waves in the horn.

In the reed woodwinds the reed acts as the door, the hinge and part of the spring return (the other part of spring return is provided by the embouchure). For a brass instrument, the embouchure acts as a door, as the hinge and the spring return.

Unlike the door in the model, the reed and the brass embouchure are flexible and elastic. A well made reed will sound brilliant, a poorly made will not. The flexibility of the embouchure gives us a definite advantage over an inflexible springed door. Unlike the inflexible door, the brass embouchure can oscillate as a whole, but also in parts of itself.

I claim that to play efficiently in the high range, a trumpeter must use nodal points in the oscillating embouchure.

Let me support my assertion with a related link from Carnegie Mellon Mechanical Engineering website (Prof. Kenji Shimada et al.).

Very few ideas are really new. Existence of nodal points in saxophone reed vibration is well established. So is the formation of nodal points in vocal chords (and what else is closer to brass playing than singing?)

The picture below is a simulation (note the similarity to the double door model) of the first mode of vibration in vocal chords, at 812.3 Hz, close to Bb above staff for a Bb trumpet.



Second mode:


Third mode:


Fourth mode:


Fifth mode. The frequency is 2366 Hz, close to E above double C (in Bb trumpet):


My main point again: we play higher partials more efficiently by using nodal points in embouchure rather than forcing the embouchure to oscillate as a single entity with two fixed end points.

The question will remain open until we see a detailed strobe or high-speed video of a trumpeter playing a brilliant double C on a transparent mouthpiece.


Last edited by etc-etc on Wed Apr 20, 2011 2:21 pm; edited 6 times in total
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dbacon
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 1:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

DB

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 2:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

etc-etc wrote:
In addition to supporting the fundamental tone of the series, the embouchure supports its overtones. Playing in the high range, for example a double C, we sound the horn at 1812 Hz, or a wavelength of 18.2 cm, much longer than the cross-section of the mouthpiece, as you have rightly noticed. However, the 1812 Hz becomes the fundamental for a new overtone series. If the series goes three octaves above the new fundamental, the highest overtone will sound at 14493 Hz, or a wavelength of 2.3 cm. This becomes comparable to the size of the aperture opening of the embouchure.

Even if overtones 5 octaves above the staff and out of the range of human hearing had anything to do with anything, this doesn't change the fact that a nodal point in the middle of the lips would not create some magical trumpet equivalent of string harmonics, since AS YOU HAVE POINTED OUT THE VIBRATION IS GOING IN AND OUT, NOT LEFT TO RIGHT. Never mind the fact that the video YOU POSTED shows exactly what happens if you divide the embouchure in two, which is (wait for it...) two notes!

Your idea is just plain wrong on every level. Anybody who can't see that at this point deserves what they get.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 2:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Richard,

The part that you quoted me on is the least important - I have in fact edited it out - please have a look on the simulations of the vocal chord oscillations.

Still, the double C to be brilliant must be accompanied by its overtone series - that series starts at triple C and should go on for several more partials.


Last edited by etc-etc on Wed Apr 20, 2011 2:28 pm; edited 1 time in total
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 2:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This thread makes perfect sense to me. It is what I have thought all along, that the trumpet is a difficult and complicated instrument. Hence it can only be played by the most talented and brightest musicians. I feel better already.
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Nonsense Eliminator
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 2:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

etc-etc wrote:
Richard,

The part that you quoted me on is the least important - I have in fact edited it out - please have a look on the simulations of the vocal chord oscillations.

Still, the double C to be brilliant must be accompanied by its overtone series - that series starts at triple C and should go on for several more partials.

No. I'm done. Since your theory is apparently immune to what I would consider logical and reasoned criticism, I have nothing left but silence or cleverly-worded putdowns. In order to preserve what is left of my dignity, I will choose the former.
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 2:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Richard,

Any theory is only good if supported by experiment. If not supported, it is abandoned (or perhaps left to be re-used for a different set of circumstances). So far, what I claim is supported by a model of vocal chords. Not an experiment, just a model and for admittedly a somewhat different subject.

Would you know of existence of a high-speed video of playing a series of partials on a trumpet with a transparent mouthpiece? The oscillations in trumpet embouchure that produce the sound are carried inside of the lips, not in the outside part visible in the trombone videos. With a fiberoptic cable in the corner of the mouth one could try to make a video - seems like a challenging project.

By the way, if it was not for your rebuttal, I would not have looked for the vocal chord nodal point simulations posted above (I suspected nodal points should be present in reed woodwind playing, however).

All in all - thank you!


Last edited by etc-etc on Wed Apr 20, 2011 3:34 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Yamahaguy
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 2:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nonsense Eliminator wrote:
As for me, I assume a symmetrical double embouchure would result in a gigantic Stay Puft Marshmallow Man wreaking havoc on New York City.
Now there's something you don't see everyday...
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