Trombone Results 



I had two trombone players come in to play their bits for me. Each of them followed the procedure described previously. Their root frequency was 240 Hz.


Tone Color Data


Trombone 1


                 Number of Significant Harmonics       Highest Frequency

Bright Sound                 11                                3000

Dark Sound                    8                                1875

Trombone 2


                 Number of Significant Harmonics       Highest Frequency

Bright Sound                 17                                4300

Dark Sound                    6                                1440


Tone Quality Data


The data for the poor sounds is much more difficult to show in a table or other graphic form. Therefore I will describe the results.

Puffed Cheeks

The puffed cheeks exercises, much like the trumpet examples produced very bright sounds and poor attacks, but a relatively characteristic tone without too much distortion. The puffed cheeks both made sounds with close to 20 significant harmonics, and a generally brash tone, but it was not unrecognizable, mearly biting.

Closed Jaw

In the experiments done with a closed jaw, both trombones produced a large number of non-harmonic pitches in the range between 5200 Hz and 5700 Hz. This came across graphically as a large block of harmonics between 200 dB and 30 dB instead of the normal formation which shows a series of stalagmite projections at regular intervals. There were also two harmonics in each that were not nearly as relevant as is normal in a characteristic tone. Trombone 1 was missing the 5th and 6th harmonics, trombone 2 the 4th and 5th.

Bad Sound

In the experiments done where the instrumentalists were asked to make a bad sound, the results were very similar to the closed jaw exercises. Again the noise harmonics were in the 5000-6000 range, and the 5th harmonic was not significant in either of the trombones' tones.

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