I am trying to gather opinions from those wiser than I in matters of metallurgy, probability, chaos, and sleds. The story is that I am a professional musician, and my specialty is playing jazz on the steel pan (what most Americans refer to as the "steel drum"). Now, steel pans are hand crafted instruments that require highly-skilled craftsmen; the pitches are created by the stretching of metal into "bubbles" that sit in a concave bowl (usually sunk from the bottom of a shipping barrel). Without going into my full story (which you can see on the webpage I posted at http://www.twotreemusic.com/garys_sled.html), I would like to know the opinion of those in the scientific community about the following scenario:

Take a round piece of heavy guage steel (perhaps a guage or two thicker than the normal bottom of a shipping barrel commonly used to make steel pans), roughly 26" in diameter, and slightly sunk (perhaps 2" deep) by a press process. Now expose this "saucer" to stress by weighing the bowl of it down with, say, 80-100 pounds of weight, and drag it at maybe ten miles per hour across rocks, tree roots, uneven ground, etc. Some denting of the surface will result.

Question 1: what are the odds that any of these dents will produce clearly discernable pitches?

Question 2: if the random denting could produce discernable pitches, what would you say were the chances that these pitches would be of common musical intervals (such as a perfect fourth, or even a triad)?

Thank you in advance for your feedback. And, again, see more about this at the above website.

-Gary Gibson

Sorry, I evidently screwed up that link. It is

http://www.twotreemusic.com/garys_sled.html

Thanks.

Dang, I really screwed up that link. Sorry, it is actually

http://www.twotreesmusic.com/garys_sled.html

...I promise that one works!

As you said, it takes an expert craftsman to make a steel drum. Ever try to play a wok? LOL

quote:

Ever try to play a wok?

And that is why I am no longer allowed to eat Chinese food...

Unless you found more than two musical notes that were relative to each other, I would say it's not your sled or drum. But since you are a steel drum player, I have a question. My wife is also a professional musician and has a rather large collection of instruments. A number of years ago, she bought a steel drum in a garage sale. It wasn't a great one but it did work. It had 5 or 6 pitches and they were, for the most part, in tune. The drum hadn't been used in a couple of years and when we got it out and she tried playing it, all the notes were almost the same pitch. What happened? It wasn't abused or beat up or anything. I could understand a note changing a little but not to the extent that they seem to have changed. And all to the same pitch. Any ideas what happened to it?