Since I started actively studying music again a few years ago, I am finding that my musical knowledge helps me in my regular job as a design engineer. The most recent example was when another engineer called me over to hear a sound that was bothering him in his motor drive system. I listened to it and heard mostly one clear note steady no matter what speed the motor was going. I told him I though he had set his PWM frequency in the audible range, somewhere in the octave above middle C. I asked him if he had a tuner app on his cell phone and he quickly downloaded one and we discovered the note was 1000Hz, very nearly B natural above middle C. We put a scope on the motor and saw the PWM frequency was in fact 1000Hz. This was the default setting for the controller he was using. He searched the documentation and found out how to set the PWM frequency to 30,000Hz, out of the range of human hearing, and the problem was solved.
I would love to hear how others have used musical skills in their day job to solve problems faster than a non-musician would have solved them.
Not my day job, but when building bicycle wheels (the front wheel) you can tighten the spokes to all be in one note to ensure they are all the same tension.
Not directly but when I'm driving the 26' bobtail I leave the radio off. This has led to some songwriting in my m,ind which is turning into material for the next cd. Which I find very cool indeed! ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
This is more directly harp technique related than just music in general. I'm a professional freediver and I noticed that the basic techniques used in bending and generally varying the quality if the sound are very similar to what I have to do to equalise at depth, I. E tongue placement, pressures in the mouth, soft palate and glottis control, diaphragm control. I was almost thinking of making student divers take up the harp!
Last Edited by Ian on Aug 02, 2015 1:45 PM
Kham, I have used the technique you describe on both bicycle and sports car wheels. I have built my share of bike wheels though it has been decades since I built my last set. Hand built used to be vastly superior to machine built but I don't know if that is still the case. Have you read Jobst Brandt's "The Bicycle Wheel"? That book vastly improved my understanding of how wheels work and how to build them. I even used concepts I learned in that book in my masters thesis for mechanical engineering, which was on a belt driven scanner carriage.
Discussions on this forum sometimes remind me of discussions about wheelbuilding. Dry, grease or locktite threads; 3 cross or 4 cross, should you tie and solder, 32 or 36 spoke, butted or bladed, high flange or low flange (I still have a set of wheels built on Record Hi-Lows) and on and on. Just like gaping and embossing and vented covers etc.
Have you ever used a Park Thread forming machine? It is hand driven but moves stainless steel around like putty to form, not cut threads on the end of a spoke. I'll bet with some clever engineering that machine could be made to form the profile of a reed that is now most often milled, and it would give the reed the same advantage over cut reads that formed threads have over cut ones.
Last Edited by STME58 on Aug 02, 2015 10:06 PM
jbone, How do you remember stuff until you get a chance to write it down? Whenever I come up with a stroke of brilliance in the car it is lost by the time I get where I am going! (which makes it kind of like the fish that got away as far as the magnitude of the brilliance;-))
Ian, perhaps you should offer freediveing courses to harp players with the promise it will improve their playing! I just heard an article on NPR today about how to get pseudoscience studies published in science journals in order to drive business. Your ad could then read something like, "freediving training scientifically shown to improve overblow intonation and reduce reed breakage in harmonica playing"!
STME58, I do lose some but if I repeat it in my head enough times until I can write it down it's there.
A big truck- not the biggest by any means but good size- kind of has its own rhythm on the road. Somehow this has helped churn out a pattern that my mind uses as a playground for lines, lyrics, and ideas. ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
I used to keep a cassette recorder on my bedside table because it seemed that sometimes as I was drifting off a melody would come to mind. I would press the record button and whistle or hum the melody. If I didn't do that it would have been lost. Now there are little digital recorders you could carry in your shirt pocket so when a song come to mind you can immediately record it so you don't lose it. ---------- Wisdom does not always come with old age. Sometimes old age arrives alone.
I sell furniture for a large chain. We had a special even and brought in a piano player. I asked him, during his break, if he knew any blues. One thing led to another and his next set he called me up to do a few songs. (Yes. I DO ALWAYS KEEP A HARP WITH ME!) Afterwards, guests were coming up to me and asking if I would help them.
I have played harp for other guests because co-workers will say something. Usually, I tell guests I only play if they buy. (But I will give a little preview if the mood hits.)
jbone, yes the road can have its own rhythm and can be musical;
I have always found the music of machinery to be interesting. The rhythm of tennis shoes in the dryer, the sounds of a steel stamping shop coming back to life after lunch break, a steam locomotive slowly building speed, the "bot dots" as you change lanes on the freeway (I have always thought they should name roads by rhythm and arrange the dots to play that rhythm).
If the “bot dots” are done to a particular tune and cut into the center line, presumably they would be directional. So, if the dots play the tune correctly while going northbound, for example, if you drive over them while going south bound would they play the tune backwards and thus unleash a demonic message that’s backmasked into the song?
Any one old enough to have been around in the ‘80s should know what I’m referring to.
@STME58. Sounds like a plan, maybe it should be a collaborative effort? I'll write the freediving stuff, you write the harp stuff and together it may just about sound plausible ;)
Here is one of the major benefits using your harmonica music skill to better your job situation.
If there is a Xmas or office party with entertainment, always find a way to play a song on the harmonica. Make sure your boss and/or supervisors are present.
Once they see this talent, they will usually look at you through different eyes from then on. Can help with your career. ---------- The Iceman
@Iceman... The first year at my current job, they had a Christmas office decorating contest. I went all out and found some old GI Joe's and built a stage to scale for the. They were my Christmas Blues Band. I made mini Bassman amps the whole bit. I set up my micro cube under the table. When the judges came around I started in on a couple of revamped holiday tunes. I won hands down. They talk about it every year now. ----------
