Use of a spectral model in developing concepts of tuba timbre

PREFACE Daniel D. Stancil is presently a graduate student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology working towards a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. His undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering was received from Tennessee Technological University. Mr. Stancil continued his musical education at Tenn Tech through private studies and playing euphonium (tenor tuba) for five years in the Tenn Tech Tuba Ensemble. It might be noted that Mr. Stancil is one of the very few nonmusic majors allowed to fully participate in the highly acclaimed Tech ensemble.

The brevity of the following report does not indicate the tremendous amount of work necessary to reach the conclusions contained therein. For example, the reader will read a simple sentence which says, "The waveforms were then digitized... and analyzed by a digital computer". This sentence represents a stack of computer print-out paper several inches thick! Mr. Stancil has spared us (musicians) the background and tried to present the picture. Perhaps the technical aspects of his research will be published in one of the scientific journals in the future.

This report is possibly a little premature as regards the practical applications possible. It may take several years to adequately judge the validity of these findings. In order to share this information as soon as possible, a decision was made to release this preliminary report.

From a practical point of view, one (the musician) must ask, "Will it help me be a better tuba player?!" If, as is the case with numerous (unfortunately perhaps most!) dissertations and theses, the work is merely a theoretical exercise with little or no actual practical application, then the value to the musician is nil.

As a teacher, one is constantly encountering students who lack a proper concept of how the tuba should sound. This does not relate so much to concepts of "dark" or "bright" (although it could — i.e.: "bright" being a harmonically "rich" sound, complex with partials versus "dark" being a very pure and simple sound lacking complexity of partials) but to problems subjectively described as "thin", "pinched", "airy" — these are problems that indicate a basic shift in timbre caused by physically forcing a sound out of the instrument based on "wrong" concepts.

Some students entering the university have "played" the tuba for five or six years. No one ever bothered to tell them that their basic sound was terrible because they were "stuck" in the back of the band with literature providing no solo opportunities. Or even worse, the director did not have sufficient knowledge of a proper tuba sound to instruct the student otherwise. At any rate, regardless of the cause, students do present themselves thinking that they produce a great sound when in fact they do not.