tubas in outer space

[bloke]

Have any of y’all engineers and other geniuses figured out how to build a tuba that plays in a vacuum?
(One of these days, Alice…)

[KingTuba1241X]

Ask Dave Gannett, he knows a lot about Mar's rocks. Maybe he's found an old Buescher or York up there in the sand looking through his telescopes.

[Three Valves]

I’m confident the latest “relief” package includes funding for such a worthy cause.

[humBell]

So this is merely a speculative thread rather than breaking news?

Didn't the Greatful Dead have a portion of their concert devoted to space?

Perhaps there was a tuba part written for it...

[Jperry1466]

I don't know about playing in a vacuum, but I do know more than a few players who create one when they play.

[ronr]

(One of these days, Alice…)

To bring the pop culture reference a little closer to modern life, I saw the title of this post and immediately thought “Pigs in Space”!

[Jim Williams]

[P@rick]

Have any of y’all engineers and other geniuses figured out how to build a tuba that plays in a vacuum?
(One of these days, Alice…)

Every Tuba can be played in vacuum...they play so good in vacuum that you won't hear the difference between a professional and an amateur ;-)

[marccromme]

Just remember to vacuum clean it first, that makes cleaner partials

[bloke]

Just remember to vacuum clean it first, that makes cleaner partials

but probably only partially…

[windshieldbug]

People who play tubas in vacuums really suck.

[Yorkboy]

Not sure, but I’ve played plenty of tubas that suck like a vacuum

[bloke]

Not sure, but I’ve played plenty of tubas that suck like a vacuum

‘ finally played a Chinese knock-off of a “tornister” BB-flat.
I am the one who always says that most tubas can be played, if one can figure out what they “need“.… I haven’t figured out what this one needs, yet.

[Yorkboy]

Not sure, but I’ve played plenty of tubas that suck like a vacuum

‘ finally played a Chinese knock-off of a “tornister” BB-flat.
I am the one who always says that most tubas can be played, if one can figure out what they “need“.… I haven’t figured out what this one needs, yet.

[GC]

In space, no one can hear you blat.

[hup_d_dup]

I don't think people will do much playing in a vacuum, but it got me to thinking, what if you could play on Mars? So I asked my brother this question:

If you could play a brass instrument on Mars, how would the low atmospheric pressure affect the sound?

Here's the answer I got:

My guess would be that things would sound about an augmented fourth lower, not because of the low pressure but because of the components of the atmosphere.

The pitch of a brass instrument is given as:

frequency = speed of sound / wavelength

where the wavelength is related to the length of the instrument.

So if the speed of sound increases, the frequency would increase, and the opposite effect for a decrease in the speed.

The speed of sound depends principally on the temperature and composition of the gas (specifically on the heat capacity ratio), and depends very little on the pressure of the gas.

For Mars (mostly carbon dioxide), I find the speed of sound to be ~540 mph, compared to Earth with 760 mph. Since the speed on Mars is slower than on Earth, the pitch should go down.

With the speed on Mars being 40% slower, I calculate the number of half-steps, n, as:

2^(n/12) = 1.4

n=5.9, about 6 half-steps or an augmented fourth lower

I see from NASA’s site that the volume would also be greatly attenuated. So you may not be able to play as high on Mars, and it will seem like you’re playing with a tight mute.

However, I also asked this question to a physics professor at Princeton University, who also happens to play trumpet in a quintet I'm in, and I got a (somewhat) different answer:

Depends what aspect of the sound you mean. The simplest question perhaps is how would the pitch of the notes of the instrument change on Mars. The temporal frequency of a standing wave is proportional to the speed of sound, which is basically a function of the temperature and the mass of the molecules that make up the atmosphere. The speed of sound on Earth is 343m/s and on Mars it is ~240m/s. So the frequencies would all be lower by a factor of about 70% on Mars.

They agree that the pitch would be lower, but they disagree on the speed of sound on Mars.

Hup

[bloke]

Interesting…
As Mars‘ atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide, it’s pretty obvious that it’s jam-packed with evil industrialists - manufacturing way too many tubas.

[hup_d_dup]

but they disagree on the speed of sound on Mars.

Sorry, my mistake. They agree on the speed, but one is in meter/sec and the other is in mile/hour.

Hup

[iiipopes]

Hmmm. The Martian atmosphere, as I understand, although thinner, has a significant amount of CO2. When we play, we exhale a significant amount of CO2. It should work....

[LargeTuba]

Maybe it already exsists

https://youtu.be/wZj7gUIO-2k