Posted by Klaus on May 05, 2001 at 16:48:08:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Pedal Notes posted by Fred Young on May 05, 2001 at 13:45:12:
Metered by pure acoustical parameters your remark "the pedal C is just about 99.9% high harmonics" is true.
However there is a strong psycho-acoustical portion of the way such a pedal note is perceived by the human ear.
First of all the set of high harmonics is distributed in a way and with internal relations of balance between the components of the set, so that this set is perceived as a unique representation of exactly that pedal C.
To illustrate this perception I can tell of the small transistor radios, who have so small loudspeaker diaphragms that they can not reproduce a note from the pedal C range as a sinustone. Listening to classical music trough such a small radio will never be comparable to the live experience nor to listening through a large HI-FI set.
Still we can perceive the low notes through such a small loudspeaker. Why? Because the human brain is the most sophisticated equalizer ever made. Whether this perception is untrue according to acoustical meterings is insignificant as long as this perception is true due to the referred psycho-acoustical effect.
In the same way our perception works in the pedal note matter. Blasting them out loudly is not the hardest aspect of low brass technique. Making smooth slurs from the open pedal note to the notes a minor and a major second just above the open pedal, that is a much harder task. The notes below the break are just so different in feel from them above.
I will maintain, that pedal notes are very well useable in ensemble contexts. Provided they are played fully in tune, with the overtones/partials being true and in tune representations of the Pythagoraean divisions (slightly flat 5th partial and slightly sharp 9th partial to mention a few typical samples).
Not only will these tuba pedal note harmonics be perceived by themselves. They will also be used by the other ensemble players, if they are good, as guidelines for their own intonation within the chordal structure.
That is why the use of pedal notes is most effective in slow final cadenzas, preferably ending on a well arranged/layouted major chord.
And irony has it, that if the other ensemble members seriously tune up to the tuba pedal harmonics, then the pedal note is heard as if it is played much stronger, than reality has it. These other notes of that certain pattern and intonation are creating their own virtual tuba or organ pipe.
During the childhood of Brit brass bands the Bb tuba was nothing more than a euphonium with the Eb bombardon being the largest of the brasses. Still in my youth, which after all was about a century after the dawn of the brass band movement, one could meet oldfashioned scores, where the euphs played divisi on the last chord. The 2nd written a fourth below the first, thereby playing a fifth above the Eb basses. The combined effect of the Eb basses and that 2nd euph was the perception of a note sounding one octave below the one played by the Eb basses.
Berlioz used that effect in his "March to the scaffold". At least in the brass band performance I took part in over 30 years ago. I on the bass bone had the pedal Bb, the 2nd had the 6th position F a fifth above, and the 1st the D a sixth above that F. Shattering effect of the double pedal being played. And with a funny resolution, whith the bassbone descending a semitone and the 1st bone descending a whole tone, so that the bassbone no longer holds the root of the chord.
A long posting, but surfing lightly over the pedal note topic will not allow for real contact with them.
Klaus