A chance to exchange notes on the little everyday things that cheer you up when you're down, or make an ordinary day into a better one. Winning move unaltered.
(pen) It's a reed instrument. The wonderfully vulgar sound comes from a vibrating membrane. Brass is basically blowing raspberries down a long tube, in my case 9-13 feet.
[Rosie] Us French hornets have a technique called bouchée or cuivré, whereby one partially stops the bell with the right hand while blowing like the proverbial. If the metal is good, the bell vibrates like crazy, which you can hear. If the metal is crap, nada.
Survival Just read back my entry directed to Stevie from early in the year, commiserating with his bronchitis. Christ, I must have had Covid! Pre-release version, OK, but it has been established that it has been around since November. Note to self - get antibody tested.
(Pablo) If the bell vibrates surely it can only do so at one frequency which may well not be the note you are blowing. My trombone does this and the bell resonates just above D a ninth above Middle C. I can only get this note on a good day (a D-day, I call it) but you can excite the resonance by playing the G below Middle C, just slightly sharp. But none of this affects the sound of the 'bone in its normal range.
BTW I hope the Covid hasn't done you any harm. I certainly don't want to get it myself, not at my age.