Music

Many years ago, I had a director of a community band preach this notion of the Sound Pyramid.  The concept from (http://www.theconcertband.com/band-training/balance-a-blend.html):

The Pyramid Approach

A more sophisticated approach to the problem of balance and intonation is identified with the composer Francis McBeth [Effective Performance of Band Music, Southern Music Company, 1972]. It is based on the theory that, at any given dynamic level, the higher pitched instruments should be playing softer than the lower pitched ones. This is consistent with the notion that players should be able to hear the bottom notes of the chord so that they can tune to them.  McBeth illustrates the concept with the use of an isosceles triangle.  Today, however, the idea is more commonly known as the pyramid approach.

Once again the band is divided into groups, this time into four as illustrated in the following diagram.  The width of the triangle is a measure of volume, so that the higher the voice, the softer the sound.

A particular incident during Christmas time sparked a rather interesting incident.

We were playing “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and we came up to a choral part that had pretty much the entire band playing half notes. The director stopped the band. “Remember the sound pyramid” He chastised the band. “Flutes and Trumpets are too loud”  And then he made a triangle with his index fingers and thumbs. I reacted naturally to the musical gangsta symbol the way a vampire reacts to a crucifix.

So my friend and I, the only two 1st trumpets decided we were just going to blow air through the horn and wiggle our fingers – not making any noise.

We played the passage again. The director stopped. “You see how much better sounding that was. Don’t you like the sound you make?”

Jokes about instrument families aside (because they get in the way of a REAL discussion about dynamics and the sad fact is our society slowly allows comedy to become perceived reality), my friend and I were really having enough of this notion of the sound pyramid.

It didn’t make sense – it wasn’t what we heard in the music we listened to (nobody tells Maynard to play softer than the bass). It didn’t even fit the classical.

So my friend Bryan emailed Dr. Francis McBeth personally and explain our situation. Here is his email:

Dear Mr. Wollenberg,

Thank you for your e-mail. It is one of the
most unusual I have ever had and I can certainly
understand your concern.

To get right to the problem, sometimes you lower
in volume the soprano, but then just as often you
pull up the volume in the bass instruments. In a
band with reasonable instrumentation, it is always
balanced at pp, p, and mp. Where the balance gets
messed up is in ff tutti passages, but if the lower
brass are loud enough, I will pull down the trumpets,
but to never less than a forte.

My system is not just my system. It is an acoustical
fact that the higher the tessitura the less volume
is needed to be heard. But you can still get good
balance with the trumpets playing ff if the lower
brass can handle it.

I can certainly see your frustration if the upper
parts are always brought down in volume and the
lower parts are never increased, because a band
cannot play too loud if they don’t lose pitch, tone
quality and balance. I don’t think I ever change
the balance except in ff sections and maybe sometimes
forte sections. I hope this explains it.

I hope I am not late in answering this. I just arrived
home. Good luck to you in the future.

Best wishes,

Francis McBeth

A couple of things to take from this email. First is “reasonable instrumentation”. A band with 15 trumpets and 1 tuba would not be balanced. That’s not to say you need a 1:1 ratio.

The other point is “in ff tutti passages” – that means when low and high voices are playing the same note in different registers. This is actually VERY important – and I see all the time in trumpet sections where a lead is being doubled down an octave. The bottom show always try to play strong to provide support for the upper voice – so the high voice can “get inside” the lower note. But this is a very SPECIFIC type of moment in music- not a general blanket statement.

But as a some-times sound engineer I took this a little further. Unfortunately my acoustic science is not complete so anyone is encouraged to supplement it.

Taking a look at a recording of Kaddish from US Air Force Band of the West under the direction of Francis McBeth himself. Here is an excerpt:

kaddish

Here is a slice of the last chord showing what frequencies are present:

There is a slightly downward slope to the chart – but it’s not as big as what some pyramid practitioners would want you to think (I’ve heard some music educators say the bass should be forte and the sopranos should be piano).

But when you listen to it… the alto voices sound most prominent… this leads me to something that I think is in line with McBeth’s idea:

It’s not that the bass notes need to be perceived louder to be in balance – but that a balanced band will have the bass notes that are louder.

This may sound strange at first. Because our ears perceive higher pitched instruments easier, the bass notes need to be “physically” louder (when judged by a non biased system ie. a recording) in order to sound “in balance” – That’s NOT to say that the bass is perceived louder.

So you’re not suppose to think… the soprano note needs to be softer than the bass… you should think: the soprano needs to be balanced with the bass and when you compare the notes on a frequency chart, you’ll find that they are.

I also think that bass instruments are capable of much more “wattage” for lack of a better word.  A Tuba can put out more sound than a piccolo but a piccolo being in the upper register will be perceived more easily.

And it’s here where my acoustical science really breaks down. Here’s another sample from Jupiter also by US Air Force Band West:

holstjup

Rendered this with far more resolution – this is the ending note from Jupiter. The bass note (around 240hz) actually has less power than the tenor note (around 375hz).

And yes, my analysis doesn’t include the overtones generated by the notes and that might make up for some of the rather “flat” looking frequencies. My knowledge on frequency analysis comes from experimentation only…

Examining these different charts eventually leads me to the final conclusion – there is no one “right” balance in terms of upper and lower voices. A dark piece might feature more bass – a bright piece might feature upper voices more. You can’t just say, “always play softer than the bottom note”

Here’s that Grinch song:
Grinch

There’s no bass whatsoever in that song…

So bottom line – the pyramid approach as it’s being taught as a one size fits all concept of balance is simply ridiculous. It’s a perversion by over-simplification of acoustic principles.

Ultimately, you have to listen and judge what kind of balance you want.

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It seemed like it went by all too fast. About 5 days ago I was worried about “hell week” – a 5 day marathon of taxing playing. But now after three performances of the Christmas Musical, it seemed to go by all too quickly.

And I still haven’t had my fill of Christmas music this year. I suppose there’s still two weeks to go…

Here are the two highlights of my night.

The first is me, in the style of Martin Luther an his theses, nailing the high Eb against the wall of the church at the end of Act I:

EndingGloria

The sound from my chair when that beautiful Eb reverberated through the hall was simply invigorating.

And the second highlight of my evening was nailing a really cool piccolo trumpet lick for the first time in three nights:

piccolo_WeMustTellTheWorld

All this accomplished while I was feeling sick and exhausted having set up the video and recording equipment. I think you can see it in my face.

So there really is a lot of different emotions going through me right now. Generally I’m happy with my final (and recorded performance). I’ll spare you the pain of listening to my rather pretty solo being ruined by a clam at the end. Otherwise, I had a rather nice night of playing.

There are a couple thoughts I want to hit upon for my own personal reflection. And yes, I will venture into what may be deemed as dangerous territory.

First of all is the concept I touched on about two weeks ago in my post about the human element. One of the things I was talking about is the fact that as a trumpet player – I bring a certain skill set to the table. Not to toot my own horn (puns!), but I bring a fairly solid commercial sound to a group. I’m extremely careful about my tuning and although I could certainly be better, I’m fairly grounded in the “semi-pro” arena.

Here’s the deal, there are other trumpet players who are certainly not near my level. I know personally a few people in this area that I would say are gladly equal and better than I am. I play with them, and I’m perfectly happy to play under them. But I will not play 2nd fiddle to someone who is not as good.

I’m not going on an ego trip here. I certainly can hear the flaws of the picc solo (although that first excerpt is frankly flawless ). I’m just saying it’s foolish to think that I can be replaced with someone off the streets or who plays lead in high school. Unless that kid is a prodigy and in that case I’ll gladly play second.

I think this reaction is a response to an attitude that I think I’m seeing in this musical group and in a few others. It’s this cobbling together of players without really any idea of their playing ability. Does so-and-so play trumpet – okay, bring him/her in. I really don’t mind students sitting in to learn how these shows work, but seriously let the experienced ones do the heavy lifting.

Which brings me to another experience recently with this musical that I’d honestly would rather no experience again. There was from high school who came in a couple rehearsals ago that on very first impression (having only heard him warm up as I walked into the hall) seemed very enthusiastic. But then upon actually meeting him and hearing him talk, he became very annoying.

Very Very Annoying.

Like, why are you sitting in the 1st trumpet chair annoying.

Like, quit bitching about how your band sucks because you can’t play in tune to save your life. And quit blaming my 70+ year old trumpet player friend for all your bad notes you little punk.

The kid would not shut up during rehearsal, making smart alec remarks to the director the whole time (loud enough so the director would hear). He acted like he was everybody’s smart ass friend – absolutely no decorum. And frankly, no talent.

Just a punk ass kid with his head shoved up his ass.

I know that kind of narcissism is really a sign of massive insecurity. I’m sure it is. He’s got plenty to be insecure about. He sucks.

Coming off of some other crap, I wasn’t afraid to pull seniority and weight on him. I know I’m better by miles. So after the first rehearsal where he clawed his way to second, I sent him down to play third. The first reason was because having someone playing that poorly around me (missing partials and hitting notes that are WAY off) makes me worse. The second reason (which may be the most important one), I was afraid I was going to deck him if I didn’t get him far away from me.

And no – he’s not in that pic above, so there!

The final bit I wanted to touch on tonight is the subject of high notes. Trumpet players live for high notes. As you can see by my posting two excerpts above. There’s a reason why – they sound extremely cool. It’s a great feeling to nail a note that sits in just right. It’s sonic purity – getting all the wavelengths to line up like that. It’s high brass heaven.

Not everyone can play high notes.

Or more accurately, not everyone plays them right.

My poor friend Joe. To hear him painfully warm up trying to reach a high G. It’s pinched and nasally. There’s nothing exciting or sizzling about it. For one, it’s out of tune. And he’s argued with me that high notes don’t need to be in tune. Totally WRONG. High notes, because of their piercing quality, need to be “more in tune” than anything else.

If the high note sits right in tune, it peaks of the wavelength play pretty with all the other notes of the chord. Like I said, sonic purity! If a high not is out of tune, it clashes because with such a high frequency, it has many opportunities to mash against the other notes in the chord.

And this is what I think why a lot of musicians/teachers who don’t “get” what high notes are about get tangled up in. They deal with a lot of kids who think, “Gee, I fingered a F on the valves, that must mean I hit a high F” while realistically, they overshot by 30 cents.

High note playing is something that requires a lot of practice and a lot of ear training. You need to start hearing what the correct pitches are suppose to be. For me, it took a long time in front of a tuner but I was determined to get those pitches into my head. I had a really hard time with it this summer, but I’m a lot closer now than I was a year or two ago.

So I can understand why some just don’t “get it” – they listen to the wannabes and think that’s all there is.

Okay, long post… but I’ll touch on one last thing.

I think I’ve been trying too hard to push myself in the MSJC college band. I did too much above the ledger playing trying to get myself to a usable double C. I can hit that, though not terribly well, but right now it is beyond my grasp. High F and Gs are really my usable limit – I need to build that strength up more and keep things around that range and slowly work up.

And sometimes I need to remember that I am not a professional musician. I’ve chosen something else as my profession and passion. This is my second love.

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