Article about tone and slurring

[timothy42b]

http://www.jayfriedman.net/trompete/

I thought this was interesting.

[robcat2075]

...It is widely thought that rotary valves produce a smoother legato then piston valves. This is a fallacy. The rule is: the longer the throw of a valve the more possibility for legato, because there is more room for sound between notes, which is the essence of legato.

hmmm....

[harrisonreed]

Yeah, that doesn't sound right to me. Maybe it has more t do with how a rotary valve articulates, vs a piston. One is more abrupt and disruptive than the other.

[Burgerbob]

Thayers have a long throw and better legato than pretty much everything else. Makes sense to me

[harrisonreed]

Yeah, I guess I never really thought too much about it. Axials in general do have pretty good legato

[robcat2075]

Thayers have a long throw and better legato than pretty much everything else. Makes sense to me

But a Thayer valve is a rotary valve. Your assertion is then contrary to his (Friedmans's), right?

He is really talking about trumpet valves anyway.

You could take any rotary valve and create different "throws" by merely changing the diameter of the post the thread wraps around. A larger post will require a larger throw of the lever to move the rotary vale the same number of degrees (Don't they all turn 90°?)

There is nothing like that on a piston valve. The throw is the distance you have to move it to get the internal passages to shift from "open" to "closed". You can't change it with gearing.

[Burgerbob]

Thayers have a long throw and better legato than pretty much everything else. Makes sense to me

But a Thayer valve is a rotary valve. Your assertion is then contrary to his (Friedmans's), right?

He is really talking about trumpet valves anyway.

You could take any rotary valve and create different "throws" by merely changing the diameter of the post the thread wraps around. A larger post will require a larger throw of the lever to move the rotary vale the same number of degrees (Don't they all turn 90°?)

There is nothing like that on a piston valve. The throw is the distance you have to move it to get the internal passages to shift from "open" to "closed". You can't change it with gearing.

It's a rotor, not the rotor valve he's referring to.

[robcat2075]

It's a rotor, not the rotor valve he's referring to.

And that changes...?

[Burgerbob]

It's a rotor, not the rotor valve he's referring to.

And that changes...?

The basic operation of the rotor. The Thayer acts a lot like the piston, the ways the ports line up.

[robcat2075]

And that changes...?

The basic operation of the rotor. The Thayer acts a lot like the piston, the ways the ports line up.

Not relevant to "throw"

[Burgerbob]

The basic operation of the rotor. The Thayer acts a lot like the piston, the ways the ports line up.

Not relevant to "throw"

Longer throw than rotors too.

[timothy42b]

Well, this just goes to show we all have different viewpoints.

What I took from this was not the use of the valves for legato, but the use of slow valves to teach the feel for glissing between pitches as an aid to better legato.

[baileyman]

Seems "throw" relates to the amount of mechanical leverage built into the system and could be changed.

[Doug Elliott]

All I know is I can throw a trombone farther than a tuba.
So what does the longer throw mean?

[Matt K]

I'd be really interested to try a rotary euph or something. I really am in no position to question Jay Friedman but my experience with Euphonium (and to a much lesser degree, trumpet) is that legato is like basically automatic on a pistons compared to all the valves I have tried on trombone. I'm sure there are other factors that are at play here, of course though. The shorter the throw the more easy I've always thought it to be. Would be interesting to try out something that is a direct comparison to really test it. I need to read the article too though maybe I'll do taht after work

[BGuttman]

I dunno. I played a rotary tuba for years and legatos seemed to be fine. Also, what about French Horns?

[Matt K]

D'oh, yeah I guess it would be a lot easier to procure a piston tuba and rotary tuba. I still find legto to be easier on euph and trumpet than I do french horn but I'm not a very good french horn player, fwiw.

[timothy42b]

If the point is to keep the buzz and air going between the notes, and one way to work on that is with really slow valves

then I wonder
if he realizes

that on trombone you can move the slide really slowly between positions.

[Wilktone]

Friedman wrote, "The idea is to produce a total portamento ( glissando) where the sound is exactly the same on the note and in between the note to the next note. There should be absolutely no indication of where the note changes. It should sound like a smear on a trombone."

This idea isn't too dissimilar from an exercise Doug gave me, the "Elasticity Routine," except you don't use half valves. In this exercise you smear between partials by making the horn play where you tell it to, through the embouchure, air, and tongue only. It's sort of like the "bending" pitch exercise that many of us are familiar with already, but instead of only bending the pitch down in the lower register it starts in the middle register and ascends to the higher register. You end up "bending" the pitch up first, before bending it down.

We had talked about this exercise some on a thread a while back.

Dave

[Doug Elliott]

Jay has mentioned Reinhardt before. I wonder if he may have gotten some of his ideas indirectly, maybe because Crisafulli went to Reinhardt when he had some chop problems.

[PosauneCat]

All I know is I can throw a trombone farther than a tuba.
So what does the longer throw mean?

That’s pretty funny, Doug.

[Wilktone]

All I know is I can throw a trombone farther than a tuba.
So what does the longer throw mean?

It means the trombone has a longer range than a tuba. Duh.