Posted by Mark on July 20, 2002 at 21:28:36:
In Reply to: Re: 5th valve question, too posted by Thomas on July 20, 2002 at 18:57:45:
The True pedal F of which you speak would be 21.83 Hz, given the A=440 standard.
Yes, the fundamental is near the limit of human hearing. However, as revealed by spectral analysis, the fundamental, even well above that note, is largely missing from tuba tone. The human ear uses the overtones to determine the pitch of that pedal FF. The bell of a tuba is waaaaay too small to support low frequencies, relative to the strength of partials.
BBb tubas have bells that range in size from 14" up to 30", yet any one of them has pretty much the same low range, given the same player & 4 valves. Only the tone quality differs. The bells are all too small to really sock out the fundamental at a loin-rattling level. For example, your basic note of BBb (3rd space under bass clef) has a wavelength of around 20 FEET. Pedal BBb is 40'.
See Rick's Tuba page for some spectrum examples of Tuba tone. The first handful of partials are arguably more important than the fundamental in determining pitch and tone quality.
If you listen to a tuba thru a pair of crappy computer speakers, or thru a typical telephone, you can easily recognize that it is a tuba, even though your're hearing hardly anything below 200 Hz! The human brain is a fantastic thing, looking at the partials, and knowing what they suggest. Under the same conditions, one can even determine if a player has good tone quality, even though the speakers/phone are poor fidelity.
The phenomenon of the "difference tone", discussed on this board periodically, works this way as well. It's all in the brain. Anybody interested in a simple experiment that proves this, lemmie know.
Hope this helps.
Mark Mazak