BS: Finding the Q spot

Subject: RE: BS: Finding the Q spot
From: GUEST,Obie
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 06:01 AM

Someone just had to say this:
"People who live in glass houses shouldn't play (sax) phones!"

Subject: RE: BS: Finding the Q spot
From: fat B****rd
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 05:26 AM

Wow ! I've heard of 14 miles on a clear night ....but several feet in a KITCHEN !!
Sidney Bechet would be proud of ya.

Subject: RE: BS: Finding the Q spot
From: gnu
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 05:25 AM

I've felt shattered after sax before.

Subject: RE: BS: Finding the Q spot
From: Mr Red
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 05:05 AM

FWIW

Glass is not a solid. It may look like a hard shiny surface to you and if hit it will shatter.   So will toffee and tar. It is all a question of temperature.

Glass has no latent heat of fusion, it is what those in know call a supercooled liquid. This may have some bearing on the effect - so will the surface tension that builds-up when it is so far below its pliable temperature.

Not a lot of people know that.........

Subject: RE: BS: Finding the Q spot
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 01:05 AM

The fact that the glass shattered is due to the fact that the fundamental frequency, or possibly one of the overtones, of the note played by the sax is equal to the mechanical resonance frequency of the glass (or at least damn close to it). So, the soundwaves travelled through the air from the sax to the glass and set the glass to vibrating at its resonant frequency which means that the motion of the glass continues to build as it is stimulated until it comes unglued.

The Q factor is the Quality factor of the glass. This is a measure of the sharpness of the resonant frequency. High Q means a sharp resonance which responds to a narrow range of frequencies but gives a bigger response if stimulated in that range. Low Q means that the range is wider but the response is less.

Had enough? If not, click.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Finding the Q spot
From: mack/misophist
Date: 26 Dec 04 - 11:21 PM

I know of one other case where the same thing happened. You're guilty as charged.

Subject: BS: Finding the Q spot
From: GUEST,Richard H
Date: 26 Dec 04 - 11:15 PM

I was practising a newly-acquired soprano sax this morning and hit a rather impressive high D which I sustained.

Suddenly there was a terrific explosion in the kitchen. A one-pint glass had shattered into little pieces none bigger than 1/4 inch. My wife says the individual fragments continued to vibrate furiously for a while afterwards.

I've heard of shattering glass with your voice and found the following on the Net: "The likelihood of the glass shattering increases with the Q value for the resonance of interest. You can tell what the resonant frequencies are by just hitting the glass with a fork (I do this at parties all the time) and the Q value would be determined by the length of time the tone the glass makes takes to decay till you cannot hear it any more."

I know about the G-spot on a soprano (that's where Kenny plays) but don't have a clue about Q value or resonance of interest.

The glass hadn't been in a microwave and was last used about 2 hours before. It had no cracks or chips.

Could the sax have shattered it?