An alternate fairy tale for brass instruments
R. Dean Ayers · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1988
Arthur Benade's well-known paperback Horns, Strings, and Harmony includes a didactic fairy tale about a bugler forced to play on a uniform pipe and stay in tune with ordinary bugles. With a bit of sawing and some impressive lipping, he manages to succeed. This story fits nicely with the prevailing view that the bell on a brass instrument causes a considerable variation in the effective length of a (singly) closed pipe, thus making the performer's job much easier. Another possible ending for this fairy tale is that the bugler solves his tuning problems with the hand-stopping technique of natural horn players, rather than with his embouchure. One day he accidentally closes the pipe completely and discovers that he now has a perfectly good harmonic series. A slight lengthening of the pipe puts him in tune with his colleagues. This ending is consistent with a view just emerging from time-domain studies that, in terms of reflection back to the driver, the bell of a brass instrument mimics the closed end of a uniform pipe. Demonstrations will be included.