That's an interesting question. I didn't seem to have much more
difficulty (than usual) blowing in Boulder (and my base is San Francisco
as well). But I did find it interesting that on a recent visit to Lake
Tahoe (somewhere around 7000 feet as I recall) I found it seemingly
easier to blow. I was only there for a couple of days so this could have
just been a lucky couple of days and had nothing to do with the
altitude. At the risk of having this thrown back in my face as a simple
physics problem has anybody done any sort of analysis of the difficulty
or lack of difficulty of blowing as a function of local air density? I
can think of half baked arguments to support either conclusion (less
resistance to support ease of blowing,...)
>
> On Thu, Jan 10, 2002 at 12:00:52PM -0800, Peter wrote:
> > If you can, go to the summer camp in Boulder...
>
> I was recently in Boulder for about a week, and could barely blow a
> note to save my life. (No sarcastic comments from the gallery
> please!) I was at two elevations there--Boulder proper, about 5000
> feet above sea level, and where my parents live at around 7500. In
> both of them I was even more wheezy and whiny than usual. It was as
> if my embouchure had completely disintegrated; practice was rather
> frustrating.
>
> When I returned to San Francisco it seemed all of a sudden as if my
> tone was even better than it had been before I left. My fantasy is
> that it actually did get better, but my judgement is not impartial.
>
> It seems as if this difficulty could have been an effect of the
> altitude-based difference in air pressure, or it could have been a
> coincidence with the standard course of tone development. Do people
> generally have trouble getting their usual sound when they go to the
> Boulder camp?
>
> -j
>
> --
> jeremy bornstein <leftfordead@stickyandconfused.com>
> -*-
> if you try to study yourself according to another
> you will always remain a secondhand human being.
> [j. krishnamurti, _freedom from the known_]
> -*-
> http://www.stickyandconfused.com/
-- Karl Young kyoung@slac.stanford.edu SLAC M/S 71 PO Box 20450 Stanford, CA 94309 650-926-3380 (voice) 650-926-2923 (FAX)
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