Author: mschmidt
Date: 2010-09-12 05:37
Attachment: a440.jpg (157k)
Attachment: a880.jpg (159k)
I have attached the jpgs of the spectral analyses.
As for publishing, it's far from being publishable. I have a reputation as a scientist to maintain!
It's sort of thrilling to be able to "see" what you can "hear," but I think spectral analysis is really of limited value unless you really put a lot of work into a well-designed study. Sure, I could try playing different reeds on different instruments with different embouchres and generate tons of data--but tons of data don't help much if you have no good way of interpreting it. To do a true scientific study, one would have to establish a clear relationship between a isolated independent variable and the resulting pattern of overtones. Based on my limited experience, I'd say you'd have a hard time even coming up with regularities based on brands of oboes--my Marigaux is going to give a different pattern than the Marigaux I decided not to buy a month and a half ago. I could take extremely accurate bore measurements of several instruments and try to correlate overtone patterns with bore measurements, but in how many places will I have to measure the bore? To what accuracy? And how many overtones will I have to measure the relative strength of? I could easily imagine files and files of data that just don't make any clear sense. Of course, I'd have to play the different oboes all on an identical reed, with an identical embouchre, etc, etc...What a headache!
I read somewhere online about somebody who tried to keep accurate thickness measurements of every reed they made, so that they could better make reeds. They gave up after a while--it was easier just to make reeds that worked.
I work in education, and there are people who think education could be improved by making more frequent measurements of what students know and understand, so that we can better find out how they can best learn. I have been tempted down that pathway, and it can very quickly suck all your energy out of actually teaching! Many in the education field have a motto that is something like "just because you can measure something doesn't mean that you should."
Mind you, I'm a scientist, and I think that science is a worthwhile pursuit, but even in something as controllable as chemistry, one has to be constantly on guard against getting sucked into trying to study and measure things where there are too many variables. As a scientist I try to design experiments to limit the number of variables. As soon as I pick up something as complex as an oboe with a reed, we're out of the territory where I'm comfortable making scientific conclusions. I think we will always be stuck with both the sciences AND the arts! And oboes are well into the realm of the arts.
Mike
Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore
Post Edited (2010-09-12 05:46)
|
|
The Oboe BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
