Re: Re: Chronic Slide-Pull-emia!


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Posted by Jay Bertolet on March 21, 2001 at 08:48:19:

In Reply to: Re: Chronic Slide-Pull-emia! posted by Matt G on March 21, 2001 at 08:19:54:

I'm with you Matt, I'll always pull slides before trying to do any lipping of notes. I am convinced that lipping notes into tune destroys any hope of a consistent sound. At least I can't do it.

So, is moving slides a placebo effect? My experience says no. I'm not an acoustician nor an expert on the physics of brass instruments but I KNOW that when I move my slide, the pitch of the note changes in the direction I move the slide. I'm also very confident that I'm not nudging the pitch with my embouchure as I have pretty good control over my embouchure and can easily tell when I change something there. If I am doing anything there, it is completely subconscious.

It has been suggested that players who move slides are doing so out of habit. I disagree with this. My main instrument for the last 20 years was a wonderful sounding, and very out of tune, Rudy Meinl 4/4 CC. It has so many pitch problems that I installed a stick on the main tuning slide because I was having to pull slides for so many notes. Now I have a Nirschl CC and I'm pulling no slides. The horn really is that well in tune. But when I pick up my Rudy for a quintet gig, I absolutely have to manipulate the main slide because the same intonation problems are there. This leads me to believe that the slide pulling is not habitual, it is a real solution to a real problem.

Maybe some sort of double-blind trial is in order to determine if the slide pulling really is all there is to the technique. All I know is that if I don't pull slides, I play out of tune. And that is just not an option.

My opinion for what it's worth...


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