rethinking resonance: the feedback tuba

outline

As instruments which use human musculature as a means of creating resonances, sound production on brass instruments, or labrosones, functions in a fundamentally different manner to those involving strings, reeds, bars, membranes, or any other external material. Labrosones resonances are created not by blowing air through the instrument, but rather by blowing air to vibrate the lips, which in turn resonate the air that is already inside the instrument. However, the lips are not just responsible for creating modal resonances, but also play a key role in sonic manipulation and definition of timbral characteristics. In this project, Jack aims to combine organological, acoustical, and practice-based approaches in order to consider the resonant structure of a labrosone as a whole, as an air-containing body which can be controlled and manipulated in various ways. One example of the creative potential enabled by this approach is an electro-acoustic extension the tuba currently in development.

To deepen possible means of reciprocal human and electronic sound generation and manipulation, Jack has been exploring how an instrumentalist’s performative autonomy can be maintained whilst integrating a secondary resonant system within the acoustic instrument itself. He has been developing a system to enable acoustic and electronic resonant systems to coexist mutually symbiotically within the same resonant chamber through creation of a controllable electroacoustic feedback loop that can be contained within a tuba. The resultant hybrid instrument is still in a nascent phase of production and musical employment, with ongoing explorations made possible through an understanding of its underlying acoustic phenomena and organological properties.

This instrument, known as a feedback tuba was developed in collaboration with Luciano Azzigotti, and is being utilised in collaboration with several other artists, including the composer Elo Masing, and improviser Francis Heery. Future developments in this field will involve collaboration with mechanical and electrical engineers in order to produce a mechanism for electro-mechanical valve adjustment.

publications and recordings

“The History and Future of the Tuba Family: Material-, Resonance-, and Performance-Based Perspectives” in the Timbre and Orchestration Resource, 2024 [case study two]

“Brass instruments, techniques, and repertoire in the early twenty-first century” in The Oxford Handbook of Wind Instruments (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2023 [awaiting publication]

Studio recording of Elo Masing’s the ghost kettle for tuba, feedback system, and tape (recorded and mixed by Dietrich Petzold (tonus arcus))

Feedback tuba sonic examples (see TOR paper linked above)

public presentations

June 2024: “Rethinking resonance: the feedback tuba,” Innovation in Music 2024: Have you tried THIS? (Kristiania University College, Oslo, NO)

March 2024: “All the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order: In search of sustainability at the interface of materiality, timbre, and performance practice,” Subject/Object/Practice/Place: Connecting Creatively Through the Performing Arts (L-Università ta' Malta, Valetta, MT)

May 2023: “Electroacoustic resonators in Incursion,” Instruments, Interfaces, Infrastructures: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Musical Media (Harvard University, Cambridge MA, US) (with Luciano Azzigotti)

March 2023: “Artistic Research and Organology: friends or foes?,” European Platform for Artistic Research in Music (Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen, DK)

February 2023: “Electroacoustic resonators in Incursion,” Komposition und Forschung (Gustav Mahler Privatuniversität, Klagenfurt, AT) (with Luciano Azzigotti)

June 2019: “The Spectral Tuba,” Spectralisms (Ircam, Paris, FR)

April 2019: “Music and Mathematics, Chaos or Chess”, Edinburgh Science Festival (National Museum of Scotland, UK) (with Prof. Lasse Rempe-Gillen)

July 2018: “Music and Mathematics, Chaos or Chess,” Resonances of Complex Dynamics (International Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Edinburgh, UK) (with Prof. Emily Howard and Prof. Lasse Rempe-Gillen)

May 2018: “Performance perspectives on ‘Mirum’,” Mauricio Kagel 2018: Performance and Interpretation (Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln, Cologne, DE)

technology

Alongside his tuba, Jack and his colleagues have utilised the following technical equipment thus far in this project:

  • PiezoBarrel screw-fitted piezoelectric microphone

  • EarFun SP200 24-Watt multidirectional speaker

  • 3D-printed custom speaker mount

  • Custom-fitted screw fitting to fourth valve slide (produced by Louis Jake Kline)

  • Programmable interface system utilising ESP32 microprocessor with LV2 plug-ins, controllable via foot pedal

  • Behringer V-Tone BDI21 Bass Driver pedal

  • Behringer U-Phoria UMC404HD sound card