Sound quality of brass-wind musical instruments
Robert W. Pyle · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2003
Confronted with the phrase ‘‘sound quality’’ applied to brass-instrument sound, the typical player will respond, ‘‘Oh, you mean tone.’’ For the player, this one word lumps together all spectrum-dependent features of the sound. The player may deliberately vary tone quality depending on the type of music being performed, the other performers involved, and the performance space. After a review of those features of tone quality common to all brass instruments and the differences between the various members of the family, some more subtle questions will be addressed. How and to what extent can the player control tone color without changing equipment? How does the player choose his or her equipment? How does the instrument maker offer choices to the player? How does the tone as heard in the audience differ from that heard by the player? Time permitting, there will be consideration of the difficulties in establishing a meaningful vocabulary for the discussion of tone quality.