Something for Scott

[Corey Mark]

I was practicing my euph in front of my computer screen, an old CRT. When I hit an E, a continuous wave of shadows moved up the screen. When I hit an F, the waves reversed and moved downward at a faster rate. No other notes created this effect. What's going on? And as far as I can tell, no howling dogs or screeching cats could be heard in my neighborhood.

[Jason Rose]

Be careful you don't hit the "brown note."

That can get pretty messy.

[Corey Mark]

Dude, at my age I can cough a brown note.






Cough.






Crap!

[Jason Rose]

Holy crap...

Funny stuff.

[Scott Miller]

When you hit certain notes, your head is vibrating at the same frequency as the refresh rate of your monitor - your head is acting like the strobe on a strobe light. Same thing explains why on old movies you'll see wagon wheels look like they're spinning backwards or if you use a timing light on a car engine, where you can "freeze" the timing pulley while the engine is running.

I think it's mostly noticeable for low brass players - I used to play around with the effect when I'd practice. Try staring at a digital alarm clock and playing different notes - when you see the numbers start to wobble, adjust your pitch up or down, you can get the numbers to look like they are skewed in place up or down on the face of the clock. Staring at area fans sometimes work as well.

On a side note (pardon the pun...) - in the US, the frequency of alternating current is 60Hz, a Bb (at A=440Hz), is 58.27Hz, and a B is 61.74Hz. We would have to kick out the cleaning crew vacuuming the auditorium in college when we would practice before concerts - the hum of the vacuum was pulling the tuning of the entire band sharp, as we would unconsciously tune to the vacuum.


And car horns honk in the key of F.

[Paige Powell]

AWESOME

[Corey Mark]

Does that explain why Tom's head almost explodes at a double high A?

[Jason Rose]

Dang Scott. Good info. Thanks!

[Andy Jurick]

On a side note (pardon the pun...) - in the US, the frequency of alternating current is 60Hz, a Bb (at A=440Hz), is 58.27Hz, and a B is 61.74Hz. We would have to kick out the cleaning crew vacuuming the auditorium in college when we would practice before concerts - the hum of the vacuum was pulling the tuning of the entire band sharp, as we would unconsciously tune to the vacuum.

Would that be called a "sucky" sound???

[Jenny Todd]

I've noticed the same effect when I'm singing. It's weird.

[Barbara Wendt]

LOL---I love you guys