The Infinisphere: Expanding Existing Electroacoustic Sound Principles by Means of an Original Design Application Specifically for Trombone
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE INFINISPHERE: EXPANDING EXISTING ELECTROACOUSTIC SOUND PRINCIPLES BY MEANS OF AN ORIGINAL DESIGN APPLICATION SPECIFICALLY FOR TROMBONE BY JUSTIN PALMER MCADARA SCHOLARLY ESSAY Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in Music with a concentration in Jazz Performance in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2020 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor James Pugh, Chair and Director of Research Assistant Professor Eli Fieldsteel Professor Erik Lund Professor Charles McNeill DMA Option 2 Thesis and Option 3 Scholarly Essay DEPOSIT COVERSHEET University of Illinois Music and Performing Arts Library Date: July 10, 2020 DMA Option (circle): 2 [thesis] or 3 [scholarly essay] Your full name: Justin Palmer McAdara Full title of Thesis or Essay: The InfiniSphere: Expanding Existing Electroacoustic Sound Principles by Means of an Original Design Application Specifically for Trombone Keywords (4-8 recommended) Please supply a minimum of 4 keywords. Keywords are broad terms that relate to your thesis and allow readers to find your work through search engines. When choosing keywords consider: composer names, performers, composition names, instruments, era of study (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, etc.), theory, analysis. You can use important words from the title of your paper or abstract, but use additional terms as needed. 1. Trombone 2. Electroacoustic 3. Electro-acoustic 4. Electric Trombone 5. Sound Sculpture 6. InfiniSphere 7. Effects 8. Electronic If you need help constructing your keywords, please contact Dr. Bashford, Director of Graduate Studies. Information about your advisors, department, and your abstract will be taken from the thesis/essay and the departmental coversheet. ABSTRACT Electroacoustic devices for expanding the sonic palette of the trombone are few in number, and all of these devices exhibit certain problems or drawbacks. While successful examples of valve and keyed instruments exist, such as the Electronic Valve Instrument (EVI) and the Electronic Wind Instrument (EWI), creating a trombone specifically to be used with electronics has proven to be more difficult. One reason is, when changing the slide position into data that could be effectively used for electronics, the slide on the trombone created a problem. This is not to say that attempts have not been made. For example, magnets and lasers have been attached to the trombone slide to create data that a computer could convert to sounds; however, that equipment was heavy and a trombone slide needs to be light and agile to be effective. To address these issues, players have adopted workarounds such a microphones and powered practice mutes plugged into guitar or bass pedals that seem to be effective on the surface but problems exist related to the natural loudness of the instrument, microphone bleed, and adverse effects on intonation. These drawbacks highlighted a gap between the acoustic and electronic trombone worlds that needed to be addressed. In this paper, I discuss the conception, development, and planned future developments of the electroacoustic trombone, The InfiniSphere. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my entire doctoral committee for their help and guidance throughout this project. In particular, Jim Pugh for your guidance throughout my years here at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Without your help, this would have never happened. Thank you for believing in me and my crazy ideas. I would like to thank Mike Corrigan, Kevin Stiles, Josh Stiles, Darrell Wilson, and the entire team at Best American Craftsman who took a chance on building this instrument and brought the InfiniSphere from concept to reality. I would like to thank my bandmates on this recital, David Fletcher and Jamie Ryan. Thank you for bringing my musical ideas to life. David, thank you for all of the long talks about this project and music in general. Your friendship has been invaluable. Thank you to Derick Cordoba for not only helping me to record the recital, but also providing me with honest and incredibly helpful feedback with this project. Your friendship has meant quite a bit through this process and my time here at UIUC. Thank you to Tom Gibson for your valuable insight and your patience as I came back to playing trombone again. I would not be doing this without your insight, and I cannot thank you enough. I will always be connected to Music=Metaphor. Lastly, I want to thank my entire family for all of your help and support through this process. In particular, from the bottom of my heart, I will always be thankful for the love and support from both of my amazing parents. Mom and Dad, I can never come close to thanking you enough for the support throughout this entire musical journey. Believe me, I know it has been difficult at times! I love you both so very much. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................... v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER 2: BRIEF HISTORY OF ELECTRONICS WITH ACOUSTIC BRASS INSTRUMENTS ............................................................................................................. 3 CHAPTER 3: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INFINISPHERE ............................................... 8 CHAPTER 4: DIFFERENCES IN PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH........................................... 30 CHAPTER 5: FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS ............................................................................ 40 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................... 43 APPENDIX A: IMPORTANT RECORDINGS IN THE FIELD OF BRASS INSTRUMENTS WITH ELECTRONICS ................................................................................................. 47 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Yamaha Silent Brass Mute for trombone .................................................................... 10 Figure 2. Yamaha Silent Brass Mute inside of a trombone ........................................................ 10 Figure 3. Yamaha Silent Brass Personal Studio ......................................................................... 11 Figure 4. e-Brass trombone mute............................................................................................... 13 Figure 5. Closeup of screw rim ................................................................................................. 15 Figure 6. Illustration of cap for the bell. .................................................................................... 17 Figure 7. Model of the cap inside the throat of the trombone ..................................................... 17 Figure 8. PiezoBarrel pickup attached to trombone mouthpiece................................................. 18 Figure 9. Trombone mouthpiece with PiezoBarrel pickup removed ........................................... 19 Figure 10. Two PiezoBarrel pickups. ........................................................................................ 19 Figure 11. Prototype with standalone sphere ............................................................................. 20 Figure 12. Prototype with attached sphere ................................................................................. 21 Figure 13. Pedalboard. .............................................................................................................. 22 Figure 14. Hand-hammered brass wireless pack enclosure soldered to trombone. ...................... 23 Figure 15. InfiniSphere with hole in center. ............................................................................... 25 Figure 16. Interior of a practice mute with stem emanating from the center ............................... 25 Figure 17. Painted InfiniSphere trombone with bell attached and painted .................................. 27 Figure 18. InfiniSphere trombone with attached acoustic trombone bell. ................................... 28 v Figure 19. InfiniSphere trombone with attached sphere. ............................................................ 28 Figure 20. Quilter 101 amplifier ................................................................................................ 32 Figure 21. Blackstar Super Fly practice amplifier. ..................................................................... 32 Figure 22. Sustained Long Tones-Tuning from Hunsberger (1980). .......................................... 33 Figure 23. Ex. 41 (Hunsberger, 1980). ...................................................................................... 35 vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Despite the existence of electronic valve and keyed instruments, such as the Electronic Valve Instrument (EVI) and the Electronic Wind Instrument (EWI), no such creations with the trombone have been successful and the methods have proved to be ineffective. For example, when changing the slide position into data that could be effectively used for electronics, the slide on the trombone created problems. While attempts such as attaching magnets and lasers to the trombone slide to create data that a computer could convert to sounds have been attempted, the equipment was too heavy and hampered performance. In addition, magnets and lasers are ineffective if a player wants to use guitar or bass pedals to color the sound rather than a computer or synthesizer