Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Toby wrote:

So does this mean that I should shut up now and let everyone go back to blissful ignorance? Looks like shakuhachi players just ain't got the same grit as saxophonists. We've had similar threads run to many hundreds of posts, with suggestions to read whole books and with multiple correspondences with famous acoustic scientists.

But I will give you one thing, you're a lot better than flute players, where the word "airy" applies to more than their sound

Toby, you're beginning to convince me that you are either a robot prototype which the U.S. Army is about to unleash as it's new psyops weapon, created to bore and frustrate their enemies into submission by turning their brains into dripping molten jelly. And we're their unfortunate testing ground.

or ....

You are a card carrying Scientologist™ — I wouldn't go so far as suggesting you could be a high level operator in their so-called "org", but maybe one of those annoying people who stand on the street corner handing out flyers while asking "Would you like to have a FREE Personality Test?" They can go on for hours and hours. Quite remarkable really.

Attempting to read through a pile of your condescending and pompous posts where you doggedly cite from your various Bibles —of which few have the access, the time or enough No-Doz™ to read— makes me wish for the good old days of the the Grand Inquisition with none of the attendant joy, like thumb screws and eye gouges.

Have you ever ever sold Herbalife™?

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:

Toby wrote:

So does this mean that I should shut up now and let everyone go back to blissful ignorance? Looks like shakuhachi players just ain't got the same grit as saxophonists. We've had similar threads run to many hundreds of posts, with suggestions to read whole books and with multiple correspondences with famous acoustic scientists.

OK now that you bring it up, you probably know who Steve Lacy is. He told me he's played a lot of saxophones and the best sounding ones were the original Adolph Sax ones. He also said his old Selmer sounded better than the new one.

Explain.

Why do the Adolf Sax ones sound better?

I also talked to Steve Lacy many years ago in Rome. A fabulous soprano player, but he used a late model Selmer Mark VI when I saw him in concert.

The explanation is that Sax used better metal...KIDDING!...Actually there is a long story about the bore shape. Sax's original bore shape was not a straight-sided cone, it was what he called a "parabolic cone", and it is claimed that indeed the tube contracted slightly in the middle. As it turns out, there is no such thing as a "parabolic cone", such a shape does not exist, but Gary Scavone, in his thesis on waveguide models of single reed woodwinds ran an analysis of the shape that Sax used, and found that it would destructively interfere with higher partial content of the radiated sound. The upshot is that an original Sax sax sounds different than later designs that use a straight-sided cone.

That is not the full story, however. My soprano sax is an old Conn from 1924 and my alto is an old Selmer from 1933, and these horns also sound different from their modern counterparts. There are many players who are aficionados of vintage saxes for their sound and response, but there are tradeoffs. I do not want to get into the very complex details, but a conical instrument is quite a bit more complicated than a cylindrical one, since there is an expanding spherical wavefront instead of just a plane wavefront that propagates down the bore. As soon as you cut the tip off the cone in order to have a place to put the mouthpiece, it completely messes up the partial mode relationships, which have to be corrected by using a mouthpiece of the correct profile, but it never really gets right. In addition there are many bore perturbations introduced by the extra compliance under the tonehole chimneys.

In a nutshell, it's difficult to really get the things to play in tune. The original saxes were envisioned as orchestral instruments, and the first ones were not meant to be loud or strident, so the bore was considerably narrower than modern horns, even apart from the shape. Sax sold the rights to manufacture the saxophone to Selmer around 110 years ago, and once the instruments started to be used in popular music, Selmer redesigned the bore several times in order to try to get more volume and edge. Mouthpiece design also changed for the same reason, which necessitated further bore changes to preserve decent intonation. In 1936 Selmer brought out the "Radio Improved" model, again to try to get more sound out of the horns for recording purposes. At the same time there was an effort made to improve intonational stability by making the lower overtones stronger and more aligned with the fundamental. This made the sound more harsh as well.

In the 60's the advent of electrified instruments made it advisable to try to eke yet more sound out of the sax. In addition, the use of third-octave notes, called "altissimos" increased dramatically in the sax repertoire, so Selmer redesigned the bore yet again, enlarging it to try to improve those two parameters. However they went too far, and the Mark VII was a notable lemon. They have since returned to smaller bore designs.

Modern saxes are very stable intonationally, but many people (including me) find them rather sterile. The intonational fluidity of the older saxes is much appreciated, even if it takes more work to play them in tune. For car buffs, think MG-B or TR-4 as compared to Miyata. For motorcyclists, think Triumph as compared to Honda or Kawasaki.

BTW, when I bought my Selmer Super many years ago, the salesman told me that the sound was superior to any modern sax because it was made from exploded shell casings from WWI, and that unique metal was not available any more. Modern metal, he said, is harder and has a hard sound. Modern saxes do have a harder sound, but it doesn't have anything to do with the metal.

Last edited by Toby (2011-02-02 07:34:08)

Toby wrote:

Musgo da Pedra wrote:

One thing that always make me curious is to play a shakuhachi made under ALL these knowledge... they should sound incredible. Anyway I know one of the top makers in Japan today that do not use some of them, like rounding edges (in jiari) inside the holes and they flutes sound really loud, in tune and easy to play...

Every bore design is a compromise. A strong low end leads to a more difficult and diffuse sounding top end (generally). A smoother bore may be more free-blowing and brighter, but may lack a certain character or sound that is desirable. What all my sensei told me in flutemaking was to strive for balance. There is an enormous amount of empirical knowledge in the bore design of good shakuhachi, put there by many dedicated craftsmen painstakingly trying different things and keeping what worked best. For all the scientific understanding of the acoustic laws, it is next to impossible to design a good bore by numbers because of the enormous complexity of what happens inside the bore, and the fact that everything is interactive. Science can be a good guide for a rough approximation, and can indicate how and where problems can be tackled, but a good flute is the product of the enormous intuitive understanding of a skilled and experienced craftsman.

But since there are so many interactive factors, it is impossible really even for a craftsman to maximize everything. So you may have a flute with sharp edges that still sounds loud because other factors affecting loudness are optimized, just as you may have a flute with rounded toneholes that is stuffy and dull because the rounding cannot make up for poor design in other areas. BTW there is a formula for determining how much the edges need to be rounded before excessive turbulence robs the flute of maximum dynamic development--the radius of the edge should be more than 0.1*sqrt(250/frequency of lowest note of the instrument) millimeters in order to eliminate the worst effects of turbulence....just in case you were wondering...

Hey Toby!

This is one of the most beautiful post I saw from you...here you show that you also use a tool that most of us use in daily life, keeping the cience a bit to the side: intuition. And also nice to hear from you that:

Toby wrote:

For all the scientific understanding of the acoustic laws, it is next to impossible to design a good bore by numbers because of the enormous complexity of what happens inside the bore, and the fact that everything is interactive. Science can be a good guide for a rough approximation, and can indicate how and where problems can be tackled, but a good flute is the product of the enormous intuitive understanding of a skilled and experienced craftsman.

About the formula, thanks for it, but I don't know how to measure it in the holes for example... how you do that?

A big hug man!

Toby,"
    I respect your stamina.
I have a problem with your reasoning on two points. First, we got to a point of agreement with "the characteristics of the material matter." But then you went back into the "material it self doesn't matter." I understand the value of isolation and analysis but in reality, you can't separate a material from it's characteristics. Maybe in theory, not in reality. Please don't duck this point.
    Second, and this I think explains what I perceive to be a rigidity on you part, you made the statement physical phenomena follow the laws of physics. Exactly backwards. The laws of physics follow the phenomena. The phenomena are complete and perfect. The laws of physics  are incomplete and changing.

Toby, I am sorry that there are those who resort to name calling and personal attacks -- thought the Rajneesh thing explains a lot LOL....
I do respect your opinion, just happen to disagree.  I think we do agree on the following:
The physical characteristics of WIDELY VARYING MATERIALS do affect sound due to they way they can be processed, their surface porosity, and perhaps the internal structure of said materials ( the air leaking through the pine used by Terry McGee comes to mind ), possibly the thermal conductivity of said material.
We are in disagreement as to whether materials affect sound by vibration or resonance of the body of the instrument can affect the resonating column of air enough to affect the sound.  I think the jury is still out on this.
Short answer, widely varying materials will affect sound by the aforementioned mechanisms.
Case closed.  Thanks for stepping into this conversation,  Mark

Toby wrote:

Note added: Colyn, when you talk about sealing the bore, are we talking about a thick, smooth and even coat of urushi, like in a jiari, or is it more like a thin coat that leaves the surface characteristics of the wood somewhat exposed? If the latter, it could well explain the consistent differences you experience. I have had wooden flutes in cocuswood, grenadilla and English boxwood, and the latter had a much different inner surface than the hardwoods.

It is a pore filling button shellac which does leave some of the characteristics of the wood behind but smooths them over with a nice gloss. I fill the bores and let them soak for about 5 minutes with a super thin mixture. Then I sand and come in with a brush and add 3 to 5 coats of the thicker stuff smoothing each out in between. I have previously mentioned this texture and questioned the need to remove it. My Suikyio 1.8 jiari has a slightly chunky textured inner bore as does Sensei's main 1.8. I suspect that in part this is why I like them both so much. This is also why I am ok with the secondary attribute theory for the moment. The grain and how each bore mills differently even with the same kind of wood does not explain the consistency though. There was an interesting related entry in the 30 year old notebook that Peter Ross passed down to me along with his tooling. it said "Material does not matter, but density does." He also told me that his maple flutes sounded like maple, the cocobolo like cocobolo and the grenadilla like grenadilla. Observations not just from himself, but also those who had sampled several of each. Perhaps they just wanted there to be a difference, perhaps they didn't. Do people always follow their preconceived biases?

Rick Riekert wrote:

If by generalizing from the empirical data I establish the rule that the better team wins and on that basis predict the Steelers will trounce the Packers in the Superbowl; then, when the Steelers do trounce the Packers the game shall rightly be said to have followed my prediction and hence the rule, not in the sense that my prediction determined the outcome of the game but in the sense that the outcome confirmed the rule.

Brian, I said "if"- i.e. a strictly hypothetical example for the purpose of illustration. Obviously from the objective viewpoint of science the game can go either way.

OK. Here's a little informal experiment of my own inspired by Toby's mention of the experiments where instruments sounded almost the same when you took off the beginning and end of the notes. I had heard this done before, back when you had to cut up tapes to accomplish it, but with different band instruments. It's real easy to do yourself with audacity.

There are 6 instruments playing an "A", each about 2 seconds. The instruments are:

1) a big Taimu (I had to go up into kan)
2) a Turkish ney
3) a quena
4) a baroque flute
5) a hocchiku (about 2.5 or so, I had to go into kan with this one two)
6) a 1.8 Jiari

... but not that order. Figuring out the order I'll leave as an exercise to the reader. If anyone really wants to know the order, I'll just wait a day or so and post it.

http://www.4shared.com/audio/QNI8QTst/d … guess.html

Tairaku 太楽 wrote:

Toby wrote:

s ago in Rome. A fabulous soprano player, but he used a late model Selmer Mark VI when I saw him in concert.

The explanation is that Sax used better metal...KIDDING!...Actually there is a long story about the bore shape. Sax's original bore shape was not a straight-sided cone, it was what he called a "parabolic cone", and it is claimed that indeed the tube contracted slightly in the middle. As it turns out, there is no such thing as a "parabolic cone", such a shape does not exist, but Gary Scavone, in his thesis on waveguide models of single reed woodwinds ran an analysis of the shape that Sax used, and found that it would destructively interfere with higher partial content of the radiated sound. The upshot is that an original Sax sax sounds different than later designs that use a straight-sided cone.
.

I thought it might have something to do with having less keys and machinery gunking up the sound. Lacy thought it was better metal.

I play a 1928 Martin curved soprano. I went around the shops in NYC and that was the best sounding one. Intonation is not a problem for me........I wouldn't be able to play any sax in tune.

Toby wrote:

I went there from Rome, where I had been doing radical experimental theater with the Living Theatre of New York for five years across Europe.

Ha. Living Theatre is awesome. I had a book about them when I was about 13 years old and my mom took it away from me, saying it was unsuitable for someone of my age. Thanks mom!

IMO Martin straight sops are the best vintage horns out there, with the possible exception of the earliest Selmers. I don't know the curved ones. Books on TLT are generally unsuitable for people of all ages...

BTW almost no one disputes the fact that modern sax keywork is light years ahead of vintage. Only one key (and in rare cases two) have been added to modern saxes, but sure enough there are those who claim that has ruined the tone.

Last edited by Toby (2011-02-02 22:26:15)

This could be as disastrous as when Gishin stopped posting.

radi0gnome wrote:

Toby wrote:

@radi0gnome: I still don't really understand what you are objecting to in the Coltman experiment.

Toby, this link is Dr. Coltman's scientific peer reviewed paper. 

And this link is a letter that he wrote in defense of his experiment in Woodwind World. Note that Woodwind World is not a peer reviewed scientific journal. 

Toby wrote:

The subjects were in no way fooled or tricked.

If I were one of the test subjects I would have been very disturbed to see his letter in Woodwind World that accused me of not being able to "dissociate {my} personal preferences and prejudices from the question at hand." I would definitely be embarrassed about telling anyone I was one of the test subjects, and hopefully no careers were ruined from the experiment.

Coltman continues in the letter that "He was then usually baffled to find that he could not identify any of the instruments under the 'blindfold' conditions I described. The plain facts are that his judgment is influenced by preconceived notions and mental associations of tone quality with other properties of the material."

If not trickery, don't you think it just plain insulting that the test participants would be talked about this way? Particularly if they were one of the subjects that really couldn't hear a enough of a difference and just played along because that's how the experiment worked.

And, I'm sorry, the plain facts only shows that the test subjects could not pick the flute they chose the first time, the plain facts do not show what the test subjects mental processes were.

I wonder why Dr. Coltman didn't put this true conclusion he arrived at in the scientific paper? Could it be that he knew it would have been shot down by his peers? His letter in Woodwind World betrays his own prejudices and I believe reduces the credibility of the scientific paper.     

Toby wrote:

To simply say "I can't find any difference" ends the experiment before it starts, since there will be no results. Assume instead that if they did have some slight perception of difference, multiple trials would give them a good chance to favor the correct instrument. Much better than a single trial, in which any number of factors might be influencing them for a short instance. At the end of the day, if they did say "I can't find a difference", it would lead to the same conclusions, wouldn't it?

If you mean the conclusion that was published in the scientific paper, yes. If you mean the conclusion about "preconceived notions" being the cause, no it does not. 

Toby wrote:

Nor can I fathom your objection to Coltman's observation about perceptive bias. It clearly exists, as shown by the wine experiment and many others like it.

If Dr. Coltman wanted to turn his experiment into a psychology experiment like the wine experiment, he could have. Have some of the runs of the experiment be where all the flutes are the same material but allow the test subjects to think that they are different as in the original experiment. Then, as in any ethically conducted psychology experiment, at the end debrief the subjects and let them know they were tricked.   

Toby wrote:

Coltman is saying that a good player invests emotion in the her/his playing, which is the polar opposite of dispassionate objectivism. Those two things cannot coexist simultaneously. Playing, for an artist, is an all-consuming experience, and as Coltman says, is not a good stance from which to answer narrow objective questions.

That's a nice way of putting it. Too bad Dr. Coltman didn't say it that way in the Woodwind World letter.

Excuse me, but that is exactly what Coltman said in the letter. He didn't say it in the study.

We don't share the same point of view. I welcome revelations of my own limitations (bring 'em on!), and anyway I already know that I cannot dissociate my perceptions from my expectations, so that is nothing new. I'm sure that I would be distressed had I been a test subject in Stanley Milgram's famous obedience experiment to find that I was willing to inflict what I though was enormous pain on the order of an authority, but some self revelations are difficult, as they challenge the noble image we have of ourselves.

I don't blame the mirror if I see myself looking horrible in the morning. I hope you don't either.

The interesting thing is that the scientists know that expectation influences perception, and that is the whole reason they use double-blind test situations. They also know that their own biases affect the outcome of trials, and that is why trials are DOUBLE blind. A recent step in law enforcement, thankfully, has been instituted, in which sessions which involve victims trying to identify suspects by looking at pictures be conducted by personnel who don't actually know who the suspected criminals are in the case. It was found that subtle unconscious clues picked up by the victims from the officers led to many a false fingering.

Let's look at your objection a bit more closely. Players felt they could identify instruments by sound (at least nearly all could). In a blind situation, players found that they could not identify the instruments by sound. Are we in agreement with those two statements?

First of all, the premise of the paper was not to test for preconception: that was an aside that was not even mentioned in the actual paper. The paper presented the conclusion that neither players no listeners could tell flutes in different materials apart in blind trials, and both the methodology and the statistical tabulation used to reach that conclusion have been judged sound. This is the paper, pure and simple. End of story.


Later in an informal forum, Coltman presents his own views on preconception, and how this influences the ongoing debate on the validity of the experiment, in answer to a scathing attack by Mather, which we do not see in the archive. But by most lights, I believe that the test subjects would have agreed with Coltman. I have been in situations in which I was dumbfounded to find that I was playing a different flute than the one that I thought I was playing, and fully experiencing it as the other one. Once I realized what was going on, there was a paradigm shift, and I started experiencing it as the one it was. If that is not prejudicial, what is? Similarly, Coltman's subjects would not have expressed bafflement at finding themselves unable to tell the flutes apart if they did not fully expect to be able to do so, right?

As Gordon Allport said:

"The human mind must think with the aid of categories...Once formed, categories form the basis for normal prejudgement. We cannot possibly avoid this process. Orderly living depends upon it."

There are thousands of experiments in psychology which have shown the effects of prejudice. Here's a good place to introduce yourself to them:

http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/11/10-pie … nature.php

With all that in mind, I'd like to address a few of your points specifically. You say:

"And this link is a letter that he wrote in defense of his experiment in Woodwind World. Note that Woodwind World is not a peer reviewed scientific journal."

Why do you mention that WW is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal? No one said that it was, nor does it have any bearing on the point of the experiment, which was to investigate whether flutes in different materials were distinctive enough to be identified in blind testing, as many people claim.  Coltman did not ask them to list the attributes of the different flutes for the record before the blind test. He simply did listening tests and playing tests and tabulated the results. How you can object to this is beyond me, unless you are simply trying to find a reason to discount the results. May I suggest you read about "cognitive dissonance" in the link I supplied above and see if the shoe fits. If not, let's talk more about your objections. Again, I must stress that "preconceived notions" was never mentioned in the paper.

You say:

"And, I'm sorry, the plain facts only shows that the test subjects could not pick the flute they chose the first time, the plain facts do not show what the test subjects mental processes were."

How else would you explain why a person who perceived and could describe clear differences between instruments in the light, suddenly could not do so in the dark, and actually scored slightly lower than chance in their judgements? In fact not one of the test subjects scored higher than chance guessing would suggest. And even if Coltman's statement exhibits a bias, on what basis do you claim this invalidates the results of the experiment? Was Coltman then blocking their perceptive mechanisms with some kind of malevolent ESP?


You say:
"If Dr. Coltman wanted to turn his experiment into a psychology experiment like the wine experiment, he could have. Have some of the runs of the experiment be where all the flutes are the same material but allow the test subjects to think that they are different as in the original experiment. Then, as in any ethically conducted psychology experiment, at the end debrief the subjects and let them know they were tricked."

Again, Coltman was not doing a psychology experiment like those explained in the link above. He simply was testing whether identically-proportioned flutes in different materials could be told apart in a double-blind situation. He was not trying to prove prejudice, although it appears that he did show that to be present. In all honesty, I cannot fathom why you find this a problem. Do you get angry at the designers of optical illusions because they show you the limits of your optical system? Do you storm out of magic shows because the magician is making a fool out of you with his clever illusions?  Personally I enjoy both, because I learn more about myself from both. I really doubt any careers are ruined by either optical illusions or magic shows.

Toby wrote:

Was Coltman then blocking their perceptive mechanisms with some kind of malevolent ESP?

Possibly ...