May 17, 2006 at 1005 BST
· Filed under General
Yesterday I had another trumpet lesson, in which I was described by Mr Archibald as “another success story”. This is really rather exciting. I’m not quite back at the standard I was before I started, but I am allowed to start playing again. I’m taking it quite gently, and will go to an orchestra rehearsal to see how it goes. Band rehearsals are all the more strenuous as they involve much more playing and less resting, but I will be back there soon.
It really is rather exciting. Its been two months, almost to the day since I started, and to be ensemble playing again so quickly is fantastic.
On the downside, Paul also said that any serious orchestral player these days needs a range of at least 5 octaves. AT LEAST FIVE OCTAVES! My range at the moment is 3 and a half octaves, so I have a long way to go!
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May 12, 2006 at 1222 BST
· Filed under General
This is quite an interesting thread:
CLICK HERE!
Ignoring all the people who have posted snide things, the thing which interests me is:
“Results are – Leq (average for that time period) 91.5dBA
Lmax (maximum) 107.3dBA
PEAK noise 122.8dBC”
Those are some very worrying figures. For the uninitiated, dbA is a measure of sound pressure (loudness if you like). 90dBA is approximately the level of a firealarm when you are standing 1 meter away from the sounder. Sounds at 80dBA will cause damage with 8hours of exposure and 120dBA will cause instant damage. This means that 91.5dBA is somewhere between the 8hours of exposure and instant damage. The question is, “Is a 2 hour rehearsal long enough to cause damage at 90dbA?”. I really don’t know. I am also not aware of any real research into the subject, but from these figures it is definitely possible that by rehearsing we are damaging the very things which we value the most: our ears!
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