Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Tairaku 太楽 · 2011-01-29 23:22:17

Sure Toby, except that we are talking about music, not science. You may be talking science but I'm into shakuhachi for the sound and the feeling I get from playing. I'm not measuring rainfall here. Here's the problem with science and music. You get people who think they can "prove" that A is better than B and then a bunch of people follow. Sometimes this is a good thing or a sideways move, such as when the viola de gamba evolved into the cello. Other times it's a disaster. All you have to do is listen to modern recordings and compare them to the recordings made 50 years ago to see that with so called advancements in recording technology, sound quality has suffered. It's a bunch of shrill, harsh, over-compressed crap that can't come close to a couple of Neumann mics plugged straight into a Studer 2 track. But there will be many scientific people who can "prove" that Lady Gaga's new CD is a "better" recording than Pablo Casal's Bach Cello Suites.

I think with shakuhachi the shape of the bore and the angle of the utaguchi are probably more important than the quality of the bamboo but the bamboo definitely plays a role.

I have played plenty of crap flutes stamped by famous makers and have seldom thought they were good because of the hanko. If it's crap it's crap.

radi0gnome · 2011-01-29 23:34:42

Toby wrote:
So what would happen is this: players would try Colyn's two flutes, find them different (because of weight or feel or due to small dimensional differences or because it is dark ebony instead of lighter rosewood) and say "flute A plays darker than flute B". And suddenly the word would spread: "a flute made out of wood A is better if you want a darker sound". This would reinforce the meme that ebony plays darker than rosewood, and in cases where there was really no real difference, players struggling to find distinctions might well "feel" that, yes, the ebony flute does seem darker...and the meme spreads and the cycle of misinformation continues.

I'm going back to this post way back from yesterday

Toby, do you really think there would be that much harm in getting a pair of flutes machined by Colyn to be as close to identical (except for the kind of wood) as he can get them to one or more high level players just to see what they say?

I guess you have a point that it's not very scientific and that the few thousandths Colyn mentioned doesn't come close to the .01mm you say is necessary, but it would be a step toward actually trying something with a shakuhachi. Who knows, maybe the testers will say they can't tell any difference.

If they do hear a difference, I guess you are right that some might take that as gospel truth, but with enough disclaimers saying that more work needs to be done I think most would chalk the results up as inconclusive.

I actually think that, although your posts defending your position are very interesting and informative, you can slow down with them some and maybe your energy and expertise would be better put to use in devising a more refined experiment, maybe one similar to Coltman's.

Last edited by radi0gnome (2011-01-29 23:45:47)

oceanica · 2011-01-29 23:41:26

OK, I have done a fair amount of reading and here is what I come up with:
As I stated when I restarted this conversation. Bore profile is by far the largest determinant of sound characteristics in a flute. However, to at least some extent the bore profile ( shape, smoothness, etc. ) IS DETERMINED BY THE MATERIAL USED, so by definitlion, materials will affect sound timbre and tone quality.
Edges matter, try smoothing the edge of a rough utaguchi....
Wall vibrations differ, yes they do, and in one paper, " Body Vibrational Spectra of Metal Flute Models " such vibrations do seem to have a small but significant effect in the 3rd and 4th harmonics. To simply dismiss these effect as " absolutely imperceptible " is an opinion, not a scientific conclusion. Vibrational distortion can and does color sound even when said distortion is at very low levels.
It is also notable that the work often cited by Coltman, Benade and Backus is over 40 years old. Coltman, used very hard and somewhat similar materials in terms of density in his work on this. More similar to each other than say cedar is to ebony, thus the differences between a less dense soft wood that would also be more porous and say or plastic or bamboo are much greater, therefore such small differences noted in say Coltman's or backus' work might be larger and more apparent in a test of more widely differing materials.
Bendade is by no means unequivocal in his conclusion,"The question of whether or not the playing properties of wind instruments are influenced by the material from which it is made has been the subject of curiously bitter controversy for at least 150 years. . . . . .Since 1958 I have made several studies of the possible difference in damping that can be made by using copper, silver, brass, nickel silver, or various kinds of wood as the air-column wall material. If the walls are thick enough not to vibrate and if they are smooth and nonporous, experiment and theory agree that switching materials will make changes in the damping that are generally less than the two-percent change that most musicians are able to detect."” Note that his lees than 2 % difference is predicated on the condition that the walls be thick enough not to vibrate.
From Terry McGee a well known Irish flute maker " To test the difference timber can make, I made a flute from our local plantation timber - pinus radiata - a coarse, soft, porous timber used for building framing. It leaked so badly at first I couldn't play a note below A, and even those notes were weak and noisy. So there's a major difference immediately! With the typical 4mm walls of a wooden flute, I could suck air right through the walls! Once heavily oiled (ie we plugged the leakage), it would play down to the bottom notes, but not with great enthusiasm. I could feel the body of the instrument vibrating, and that energy has to come from somewhere.

So who's right, John or me? Answer, both of us, because we're looking at slightly different questions. John was probably aiming his experiment at the metal flute market, particularly those who spend vast amounts of money on flutes of exotic metals. It probably didn't occur to him to consider using materials that were inadequate containers. Why would you do that?

But inadequate containers is wooden flute business. No wood is perfectly smooth, perfectly airtight and infinitely strong, although most of our flute timbers are adequately smooth, airtight and strong for our purposes. That's why they are called flute timbers! But my experiment shows that it is a spectrum, and that a timber not at the far end can be expected to give slightly different results to a timber at the far end. Boxwood would be such a timber - about 80% of the density of timbers in the african blackwood category. Coming back a little more, the "fine furniture timbers" - rosewoods, walnut, etc are half the density or less, and a good deal coarser in the grain - we should certainly expect less of them. And that's why they are not normally used for flute-making."
Lastly, the differences that I am mentioning are apparent to the PLAYER, and are much less apparent to the listener. This may be because the sound and vibrations from the shakuhachi are transmitted also through the jaw of the player to the middle and inner ear, thus small differences in tonal quality that according to measurement should not be heard by a listener may be more discernible to the player.
In summary, materials do make a difference, but less so than shape.

Tairaku 太楽 · 2011-01-29 23:51:37

Toby how about looking at it from a different perspective like:

"Although current scientific thought might indicate that the material used in making a shakuhachi is not a factor, this supposition is obviously incorrect, based on the opinions of all good makers and players. Therefore there must be something which hasn't been tested which can explain the superiority of bamboo."

Figure that one out and you'll have made your own contribution to science instead of just regurgitating other people's opinions!

And Ed, before you jump in, I'll trade you my Perry Yung PVC 2.8 for your Perry Yung jinashi 2.8. OK? I'll even pay the postage.

Toby · 2011-01-30 00:10:10

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:
Sure Toby, except that we are talking about music, not science. You may be talking science but I'm into shakuhachi for the sound and the feeling I get from playing. I'm not measuring rainfall here. Here's the problem with science and music. You get people who think they can "prove" that A is better than B and then a bunch of people follow. Sometimes this is a good thing or a sideways move, such as when the viola de gamba evolved into the cello. Other times it's a disaster. All you have to do is listen to modern recordings and compare them to the recordings made 50 years ago to see that with so called advancements in recording technology, sound quality has suffered. It's a bunch of shrill, harsh, over-compressed crap that can't come close to a couple of Neumann mics plugged straight into a Studer 2 track. But there will be many scientific people who can "prove" that Lady Gaga's new CD is a "better" recording than Pablo Casal's Bach Cello Suites.

I think with shakuhachi the shape of the bore and the angle of the utaguchi are probably more important than the quality of the bamboo but the bamboo definitely plays a role.

I have played plenty of crap flutes stamped by famous makers and have seldom thought they were good because of the hanko. If it's crap it's crap.

Just to be clear, I am talking about the narrow, objective question as posed by Coltman. In the larger sense, whatever affects the player affects the music, so of course the material makes a difference from the larger point of view. But let's not mix up the apples and the oranges. In your music example, for instance, it raises the question of the definition of "better". You better watch out, because I did pro audio for a while ;-)

In certain technical terms: s/n ratio, frequency response, wow and flutter, for instance, newer technologies are definitely superior on their own terms. In others, for instance harmonic distortion, they have a very different characteristic than older analog technologies, going from clean to horribly distorted in an instant. That can be significant in quick signal peaks, for instance.

As always, it is a question of what parameters are included in "better" and what weight they are given. A couple of U47s recording Casals is a completely different scenario from the multitacked and super-processed way that Lady Gaga is recorded. And with the Casals example, there are three main ways to set up stereo mics, A-B, X-Y and S/M. All have advantages and disadvantages. Is S/M miking better than A-B? Depends...

Is some compression better than no compression? Depends. With an amp of infinite power and no noise floor, perhaps. In the real world for listening on a normal stereo system.....?

And of course the main question...does Lady Gaga make better music that Pablo Casals?

Just out of interest, how would you define the role of the bamboo in the shakuhachi, apart from how it feels and how it looks and the effects of those on the player and the playing?

oceanica · 2011-01-30 00:11:08

One other item...
The scientific studies and citations of the same all rely on volume and pitch. These are not the qualities that I am writing of. I am concerned with timbre and tone. I assume that everyone can tell the difference between say and oboe and a violin played at identical pitch and volume. It is entirely possible that very small differences can be discerned regarding tone and timbre.....
Have not seen any papers regarding this.

oceanica · 2011-01-30 00:14:19

I didn't say anything about better, just different....
Yeah, I did the pro-audio thing for a short time too, lots more bs there.....LOL.

Toby · 2011-01-30 00:14:27

radi0gnome wrote:
Toby wrote:
So what would happen is this: players would try Colyn's two flutes, find them different (because of weight or feel or due to small dimensional differences or because it is dark ebony instead of lighter rosewood) and say "flute A plays darker than flute B". And suddenly the word would spread: "a flute made out of wood A is better if you want a darker sound". This would reinforce the meme that ebony plays darker than rosewood, and in cases where there was really no real difference, players struggling to find distinctions might well "feel" that, yes, the ebony flute does seem darker...and the meme spreads and the cycle of misinformation continues.
I'm going back to this post way back from yesterday

Toby, do you really think there would be that much harm in getting a pair of flutes machined by Colyn to be as close to identical (except for the kind of wood) as he can get them to one or more high level players just to see what they say?

I guess you have a point that it's not very scientific and that the few thousandths Colyn mentioned doesn't come close to the .01mm you say is necessary, but it would be a step toward actually trying something with a shakuhachi. Who knows, maybe the testers will say they can't tell any difference.

If they do hear a difference, I guess you are right that some might take that as gospel truth, but with enough disclaimers saying that more work needs to be done I think most would chalk the results up as inconclusive.

I actually think that, although your posts defending your position are very interesting and informative, you can slow down with them some and maybe your energy and expertise would be better put to use in devising a more refined experiment, maybe one similar to Coltman's.

The problem with the experiment you propose is that it does not control for factors known to be significant, so it can never come close to answering the question. In terms of devising a better experiment: people have been working on this for at least 150 years, and have performed experiments that have led to a scientific consensus that I have been endlessly repeating here. The wheel has already been invented, no need to reinvent it. The only really pertinent question is whether the shakuhachi has any unique properties that would merit another investigation using it instead of other instruments. Can you think of any?

Toby · 2011-01-30 00:21:34

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:
Toby how about looking at it from a different perspective like:

"Although current scientific thought might indicate that the material used in making a shakuhachi is not a factor, this supposition is obviously incorrect, based on the opinions of all good makers and players. Therefore there must be something which hasn't been tested which can explain the superiority of bamboo."

Figure that one out and you'll have made your own contribution to science instead of just regurgitating other people's opinions!

And Ed, before you jump in, I'll trade you my Perry Yung PVC 2.8 for your Perry Yung jinashi 2.8. OK? I'll even pay the postage.

Hmmm....How 'bout this instead:

"Although current traditional thought might indicate that the material used in making a shakuhachi is a factor, this supposition is obviously incorrect, based on rigorous objective experiments performed by top acoustic scientists for the last 150 years. Therefore there must be something that is distorting the opinions of all good makers and players, in respect to the sonic qualities of bamboo."

Do you think we can find some common ground between those two views?

If Perry could make a PVC flute with exactly the same bore as his jinashi, I would take that before I would suffer with such a poor, dimensionally unstable and fragile material such as bamboo. Did you know that Yamamoto Hozan used to travel with plastic flutes for a lot of his gigs, after his favorite 1.8 cracked all the way through on one recording session in the US?

Last edited by Toby (2011-01-30 00:22:31)

Toby · 2011-01-30 00:31:17

oceanica wrote:
OK, I have done a fair amount of reading and here is what I come up with:
As I stated when I restarted this conversation. Bore profile is by far the largest determinant of sound characteristics in a flute. However, to at least some extent the bore profile ( shape, smoothness, etc. ) IS DETERMINED BY THE MATERIAL USED, so by definitlion, materials will affect sound timbre and tone quality.
Edges matter, try smoothing the edge of a rough utaguchi....
Wall vibrations differ, yes they do, and in one paper, " Body Vibrational Spectra of Metal Flute Models " such vibrations do seem to have a small but significant effect in the 3rd and 4th harmonics. To simply dismiss these effect as " absolutely imperceptible " is an opinion, not a scientific conclusion. Vibrational distortion can and does color sound even when said distortion is at very low levels.
It is also notable that the work often cited by Coltman, Benade and Backus is over 40 years old. Coltman, used very hard and somewhat similar materials in terms of density in his work on this. More similar to each other than say cedar is to ebony, thus the differences between a less dense soft wood that would also be more porous and say or plastic or bamboo are much greater, therefore such small differences noted in say Coltman's or backus' work might be larger and more apparent in a test of more widely differing materials.
Bendade is by no means unequivocal in his conclusion,"The question of whether or not the playing properties of wind instruments are influenced by the material from which it is made has been the subject of curiously bitter controversy for at least 150 years. . . . . .Since 1958 I have made several studies of the possible difference in damping that can be made by using copper, silver, brass, nickel silver, or various kinds of wood as the air-column wall material. If the walls are thick enough not to vibrate and if they are smooth and nonporous, experiment and theory agree that switching materials will make changes in the damping that are generally less than the two-percent change that most musicians are able to detect."” Note that his lees than 2 % difference is predicated on the condition that the walls be thick enough not to vibrate.
From Terry McGee a well known Irish flute maker " To test the difference timber can make, I made a flute from our local plantation timber - pinus radiata - a coarse, soft, porous timber used for building framing. It leaked so badly at first I couldn't play a note below A, and even those notes were weak and noisy. So there's a major difference immediately! With the typical 4mm walls of a wooden flute, I could suck air right through the walls! Once heavily oiled (ie we plugged the leakage), it would play down to the bottom notes, but not with great enthusiasm. I could feel the body of the instrument vibrating, and that energy has to come from somewhere.

So who's right, John or me? Answer, both of us, because we're looking at slightly different questions. John was probably aiming his experiment at the metal flute market, particularly those who spend vast amounts of money on flutes of exotic metals. It probably didn't occur to him to consider using materials that were inadequate containers. Why would you do that?

But inadequate containers is wooden flute business. No wood is perfectly smooth, perfectly airtight and infinitely strong, although most of our flute timbers are adequately smooth, airtight and strong for our purposes. That's why they are called flute timbers! But my experiment shows that it is a spectrum, and that a timber not at the far end can be expected to give slightly different results to a timber at the far end. Boxwood would be such a timber - about 80% of the density of timbers in the african blackwood category. Coming back a little more, the "fine furniture timbers" - rosewoods, walnut, etc are half the density or less, and a good deal coarser in the grain - we should certainly expect less of them. And that's why they are not normally used for flute-making."
Lastly, the differences that I am mentioning are apparent to the PLAYER, and are much less apparent to the listener. This may be because the sound and vibrations from the shakuhachi are transmitted also through the jaw of the player to the middle and inner ear, thus small differences in tonal quality that according to measurement should not be heard by a listener may be more discernible to the player.
In summary, materials do make a difference, but less so than shape.

Please don't get me wrong. Materials DO make a difference if they affect the shape or smoothness of the container. I would argue with you about the significance of vibration, and will if you want. The paper you quote is not even a thesis, and rather informal. I can link you to some more careful and complete papers if you want. Even if there was some slight difference in the heights of a couple of harmonics, it begs the question of whether they would be perceptible. Don't forget the Smith paper, where much larger sonic differences were imperceptible to ten top pro trombone players.

Read these for starters:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour … mp;cad=rja

http://www.bretpimentel.com/does-materi … -to-agree/

Tairaku 太楽 · 2011-01-30 00:33:03

Toby wrote:
If Perry could make a PVC flute with exactly the same bore as his jinashi, I would take that before I would suffer with such a poor, dimensionally unstable and fragile material such as bamboo. Did you know that Yamamoto Hozan used to travel with plastic flutes for a lot of his gigs, after his favorite 1.8 cracked all the way through on one recording session in the US?

No but I have heard that "a prominent player" used plastic flutes on his recordings but played bamboo at gigs because the public wanted to buy into the bamboo vibe. I sometimes take plastic flutes around and use them on gigs and I use wooden flutes on recordings frequently, I am not a purist.

radi0gnome · 2011-01-30 00:53:18

Toby wrote:
The only really pertinent question is whether the shakuhachi has any unique properties that would merit another investigation using it instead of other instruments. Can you think of any?

Yes. The tone has a lot more kick than other flutes.

Aside from that, I just want to see what happens when high-level players try two shakuhachi made close to identical except for the type of wood. I think it would be an interesting experiment.

BTW, I know you're going to say that other experiments support Coltman's findings so it's different, but when you find an experiment that you have that many problems with, you try to reproduce it. Scientists do that sort of thing. Look at cold fusion for example.

Last edited by radi0gnome (2011-01-30 01:23:37)

Moran from Planet X · 2011-01-30 01:05:45

Toby wrote:
Moran (is that spelled right?)

I hate to tell you this, Toby, but you are not the first genius to come up with that question.

Moran from Planet X · 2011-01-30 01:13:15

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:
[
No but I have heard that "a prominent player" used plastic flutes on his recordings but played bamboo at gigs because the public wanted to buy into the bamboo vibe.

C'mon Brian, inquiring minds _need_ to know who this "prominent player" is. Don't be a tease. Up it, babe.

Moran from Planet X · 2011-01-30 01:16:25

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:
[
Spelled "M-O-R-A-N".

Oh, no, Brian, I don't think you really have to spell it for Toby. We can allow him to be witty.

Tairaku 太楽 · 2011-01-30 01:34:03

Moran from Planet X wrote:
Tairaku 太楽 wrote:
[
No but I have heard that "a prominent player" used plastic flutes on his recordings but played bamboo at gigs because the public wanted to buy into the bamboo vibe.
C'mon Brian, inquiring minds _need_ to know who this "prominent player" is. Don't be a tease. Up it, babe.

Don't know, someone just said "a prominent player".

I know Kikusui Kofu used them.

Toby · 2011-01-30 02:15:35

Moran from Planet X wrote:
Toby wrote:
Moran (is that spelled right?)
I hate to tell you this, Toby, but you are not the first genius to come up with that question.

Your library of images is truly awesome...

Actually I thought it might be "moraine": an accumulation of boulders, stones, or other debris carried and deposited by a glacier.

Last edited by Toby (2011-01-30 02:39:33)

Toby · 2011-01-30 02:36:15

radi0gnome wrote:
Toby wrote:
The only really pertinent question is whether the shakuhachi has any unique properties that would merit another investigation using it instead of other instruments. Can you think of any?
Yes. The tone has a lot more kick than other flutes.

Aside from that, I just want to see what happens when high-level players try two shakuhachi made close to identical except for the type of wood. I think it would be an interesting experiment.

BTW, I know you're going to say that other experiments support Coltman's findings so it's different, but when you find an experiment that you have that many problems with, you try to reproduce it. Scientists do that sort of thing. Look at cold fusion for example.

Every scientific result should be repeatable, that is one of the prime tenets of science. No one could reproduce the results of the first reporters of cold fusion, so it (sadly) dropped off the map as a real phenomenon.

And that "kick" adds what to the equation? Speaking precisely do you mean that the shakuhachi has more power, equating to more pressure at the walls, or more high frequency content, which is lost differentially to the walls, or both? In both those areas, the sax has a lot more "kick" than the shakuhachi, and much thinner walls to boot, and materials don't matter there, so...?

A man study in 1909 reported strong differences in the sound of organ pipes in different materials, and it looked like something had been discovered and the non-significance of wall materials disproved. Then it was realized that there was a fundamental flaw in the study. These were square organ pipes, and flat surfaces have much lower resonance frequencies than curved ones do. The flat sides of the tubes were entering what is called "breathing mode", where the walls couple with the playing frequency and start vibrating strongly in and out. But low and behold, once you make the tube round, it raises the lowest resonance frequency way beyond the highest playing frequency, and the tube can no longer resonate. It is similar to a child on a swing: only if she pumps her legs in a rhythm that matches the periodic frequency of the swing as determined by the length of the chain, does the swing really swing. Otherwise the periodic motion just can't get going. The swing may move a bit, but it never really gets moving.

This is the exact same thing that happens with the walls of the flute: no playing frequency can get them really breathing. So there was a fundamental flaw in the organ pipe study as it applied to round tubes.

Your study would really not prove anything. Here is a story to illustrate the point: Some time ago a flute player and professor of flute named Joan Lynn White wanted to do the materials test. She and her researchers obtained five exactlingly hand made Prima Sankyo flutes in four materials: one was in palladium, one in 14K gold, one in 9K gold and two in silver. The two silver ones were a control, to see how much small manufacturing differences might contribute to variations in the sound spectrum. Once that was known as a benchmark, they would know the range of variability due to manufacturing tolerances and could then factor that out.

The experiment basically stopped before it started, because they found the variability between the two silver flutes so great that it completely overshadowed any differences that could be attributed to the metal. The researchers reported only that it was possible that the 7th harmonic of the 9K flute was slightly lower, but that partial is so weak to begin with, that it could not possibly have changed the sound perceptibly.

So you get Colyn to make two flutes, which will certainly have differences greater than the flutes drawn on mandrels. In addition there will be different bore smoothness profiles, based on the fact that wood is not a homogeneous material, and different woods have different cellular and grain structure. You give them to players to hold and touch, in plain sight where preconception can add to the mix. Of course they will report differences, and consistent differences.

What, then, does that prove?

Last edited by Toby (2011-01-30 02:46:26)

Moran from Planet X · 2011-01-30 03:29:28

Toby wrote:
Actually I thought it might be "moraine": an accumulation of boulders, stones, or other debris carried and deposited by a glacier.

Lake Moraine

Why thank you , Toby, a "pile of debris" may be the nicest thing anyone has called me in a long time.

Tell you what, I'll change my name to "Moraine" and you change your name to "R. Mutt Urinal", we can put flowers in our hair, hold hands and skip merrily down the garden path into the sunset.

... Whattya say? Date?

Toby · 2011-01-30 03:57:03

Sorry, I already did most of that in the East Bay in the '60s, and it didn't work out so well. The sun rose again and I ended up arguing esoteric and non-important points endlessly on the internet.

Last edited by Toby (2011-01-30 03:59:21)

radi0gnome · 2011-01-30 09:21:04

Toby wrote:
radi0gnome wrote:
Toby wrote:
The only really pertinent question is whether the shakuhachi has any unique properties that would merit another investigation using it instead of other instruments. Can you think of any?
Yes. The tone has a lot more kick than other flutes...
And that "kick" adds what to the equation? Speaking precisely do you mean that the shakuhachi has more power, equating to more pressure at the walls, or more high frequency content, which is lost differentially to the walls, or both? In both those areas, the sax has a lot more "kick" than the shakuhachi, and much thinner walls to boot, and materials don't matter there, so...?

Good point, Toby. Yes, I guess I was referring to the way it felt at the mouthpiece and the ability to "honk". And yes, sax has that.

Toby wrote:
Your study would really not prove anything. Here is a story to illustrate the point: Some time ago a flute player and professor of flute named Joan Lynn White wanted to do the materials test. She and her researchers obtained five exactlingly hand made Prima Sankyo flutes in four materials: one was in palladium, one in 14K gold, one in 9K gold and two in silver. The two silver ones were a control, to see how much small manufacturing differences might contribute to variations in the sound spectrum. Once that was known as a benchmark, they would know the range of variability due to manufacturing tolerances and could then factor that out.

This is very similar to what I proposed, close to the same except for the sequence.

Toby wrote:
The experiment basically stopped before it started, because they found the variability between the two silver flutes so great that it completely overshadowed any differences that could be attributed to the metal. {...}

So you get Colyn to make two flutes, which will certainly have differences greater than the flutes drawn on mandrels. In addition there will be different bore smoothness profiles, based on the fact that wood is not a homogeneous material, and different woods have different cellular and grain structure. You give them to players to hold and touch, in plain sight where preconception can add to the mix. Of course they will report differences, and consistent differences.

What, then, does that prove?

True, if the outcome is that the testers hear a difference, it "proves" nothing, and more work is needed. But, a single piece shakuhachi is a much simpler instrument mechanically than a modern transverse flute. Would the experiment you just mentioned have stopped at the point of testing the controls if the researchers only concerned themselves with the headjoints? Why are you so sure of the outcome with Colyn's shakuhachi?

I also find it curious why you keep gravitating towards Coltman's experiment when discussing this issue. That particular experiment had an awful small sample size with testers whose musicianship is questionable. Which isn't all that bad, it still goes a long way to suggest that material does not make a difference. But questions are left open about why none of the testers gave up and said they couldn't hear a difference even though they apparently could not.

However, Coltman then, in a related letter, not the scientific paper, goes on to state some stuff about how ""...the musician cannot, under normal playing circumstances, dissociate his personal preferences and prejudices from the question at hand". Coltman apparently had an axe to grind. You, Toby, support Coltman's statement by mentioning some psychology experiments, one where wine testers objectivity fell apart when they did know what wines they were testing. How you and Coltman can extrapolate that this is definitively the reason Coltman got the results he did is beyond me, and is insulting to every musician out there, particularly ones who say they hear a difference with different materials.

If an experiment similar to the wine experiment was conducted where testers pleasure with playing a Yuu stepped up a few notches when they were told (and somehow believed) it was a Shigemi I'd say Coltman nailed it. However, as it stands, I trust most high level musician's (particularly some here that I've met) ability to drop their preconceived notions and test two identical flutes objectively.

For anyone still following this, here is Toby's description of the wine experiment:

Toby wrote:
There was an experiment done several years ago in which some test subjects were hooked up to an fMRI machine (to measure brain activity in real time) and given two different wines to drink. One was a decent but ordinary table wine, the other a rare and costly vintage. The subjects reported enjoying the rare vintage more, and the brain scans showed more activity in the pleasure centers of their brains--they actually were enjoying it more. The punch line is that the wines were exactly the same.

Last edited by radi0gnome (2011-01-30 09:26:57)

mrwuwu · 2011-01-30 09:50:25

http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/ … e-lake.jpg The hills were alive with the sound of music, now they are filled with the songs of a dead horse beaten for a thousand years......................

Last edited by mrwuwu (2011-01-30 09:52:45)

oceanica · 2011-01-30 12:47:04

No one responded to my comment about being able to tell the difference between and oboe and a violin played at same pitch and volume ( frequency and amplitude ) or even a trumpet and a flute.....
Timbre and tone are related to pitch and volume, but not the same. Anecdotally ( and I think all would agree ) that one can hear differences in timbre and tone. No experiments to date ( none ) have addressed this point. This is where materials could play a role.
Toby, I have done enough reading to see that the flawed ( poor control, lack of adequate documentation of materials and methods, and statistically questionable data ) studies as well as equivocal conclusions are par for the course in this area. So the paper I cite is unacceptable while the studies you cite are....
Lastly,
It seems that you agree that the working properties of materials make a difference in tone. You have not addressed the questions of vibration ( sound ) transmitted through the jaw, a known phenomenon, and while the admittedly small affects to upper harmonics due to vibration are apparent, you conclude that such vibrations do not make detectable differences in tone or timbre based on 2 studies, neither of which can support this conclusion ( regarding woodwinds ) with any data.
IMHO, science has not provided sufficient evidence to disprove that widely differing materials effect tone or timbre in the woodwind family of instruments and certainly not shakuhachi and similar instruments.
I am not certain that any such experiment could be devised given the variables involved.
I am done now.

Colyn Petersen · 2011-01-30 13:23:51

Ok, here's how it will go down. Acknowledging and accepting ahead of time that there is nothing that I, with my limited resources, or anyone else can do to to date that will make the experiment verifiable to the scientific community. I am in the process of making 2 flutes with stark differences in density. One in Eastern red cedar, one in something such as ebony or cocobolo. I will do my best to keep the tolerances to within 3 thousandths of an inch (I know this isn't good enough) and the bores sealed and similar in smoothness/texture. I will then send them off to be passed around for those curious enough to want to participate. Again, this is not science folks, but it may serve some purpose yet to be determined.

I do still think it a valid point, however, that in all of the cited experiments mentioned to date there were no softer materials listed. Are we forgetting this, or is it deemed unimportant? It was always metal and super dense wood. At best "various woods" which seems a pretty loose statement to me. I personally feel this is enough of an oversight to justify further experimentation. There is a question being asked here that, to my knowledge, has not been asked before. An element that has been left out that is now begging to be observed. If anyone can come up with an "acceptable" experiment, I am quite willing to try. Until then....

It is with my opening statement in this post, that I move to adjourn this head butting session and move the topic into another area. I thought we had come to a consensus here that the secondary attributes of differing materials do effect the end product. If so, it seems that we have forgotten that already and are back to the cyclic reiteration of the same old talking points. I'll accept the secondary attribute statement for now. But there are still questions to be asked that are seemingly valid to the player at least, even if the listener could not tell a difference. How about "what the player hears vs. the listener" Anyone game? A more rich experience to the player most certainly could be fed back into the music. What value have we in this related to material?

Colyn

Last edited by Colyn Petersen (2011-01-30 14:53:22)

rpowers · 2011-01-30 14:48:43

radi0gnome wrote:
What we would be doing in this experiment is using the top level players as scientific measurement instruments because while we know that our non-human instrumentation will always find subtle differences due to issues not related to material, we do not know how much difference there needs to be for a highly trained musician to detect it.

Top level players are valued because they are not precision scientific instruments; they are recognized as top level because of the subjective application of their physical/mechanical skills.

Do you know the difference between a poet and a word processor? (No punch line necessary, but sure to follow anyway.)

Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

#126 2011-01-29 23:22:17

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

#127 2011-01-29 23:34:42

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Toby wrote:

#128 2011-01-29 23:41:26

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

#129 2011-01-29 23:51:37

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

#130 2011-01-30 00:10:10

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:

#131 2011-01-30 00:11:08

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

#132 2011-01-30 00:14:19

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

#133 2011-01-30 00:14:27

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

radi0gnome wrote:

Toby wrote:

#134 2011-01-30 00:21:34

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:

#135 2011-01-30 00:31:17

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

oceanica wrote:

#136 2011-01-30 00:33:03

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Toby wrote:

#137 2011-01-30 00:53:18

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Toby wrote:

#138 2011-01-30 01:05:45

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Toby wrote:

#139 2011-01-30 01:13:15

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:

#140 2011-01-30 01:16:25

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:

#141 2011-01-30 01:34:03

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Moran from Planet X wrote:

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:

#142 2011-01-30 02:15:35

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Moran from Planet X wrote:

Toby wrote:

#143 2011-01-30 02:36:15

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

radi0gnome wrote:

Toby wrote:

#144 2011-01-30 03:29:28

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Toby wrote:

#145 2011-01-30 03:57:03

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

#146 2011-01-30 09:21:04

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

Toby wrote:

radi0gnome wrote:

Toby wrote:

Toby wrote:

Toby wrote:

Toby wrote:

#147 2011-01-30 09:50:25

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

#148 2011-01-30 12:47:04

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

#149 2011-01-30 13:23:51

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

#150 2011-01-30 14:48:43

Re: Do materials used affect sound?

radi0gnome wrote:

Board footer