Myth‐busting brass instrument design

Abstract

Richard Smith has designed and made instruments for professional brass players for over 35 years. With a background as scientist and musician, he has a unique view of the subject in which his myth‐busting has been a dominant feature. The challenge now is to transfer this knowledge to music educators and players. It can be shown that any instrument is a compromise of musical qualities, making the quest for the perfect instrument pointless and a distraction from the real business of making music. Resistance is probably the most difficult of these musical qualities to interpret from player responses. It will be demonstrated how the language of fluid dynamics has been wrongly adopted by players, educators, and manufacturers to give pseudo‐scientific authority to their teaching and product promotion. The development of a blindfold testing technique by Smith was crucial to (a) the study of materials used in instrument construction and (b) a breakthrough in efficient instrument design. Current work with Thomas Moore (Rollins College, USA) and David Howard (University of York, UK) investigates the mystery of hi‐note playing on the trumpet where the most skilled players find distinct slots above 2 kHz in, according to acoustical textbooks, a resonance free zone.