Effect of Changing the Vocal Tract Shape on the Sound Production of the Recorder: An Experimental and Theoretical Study

Changing the vocal tract shape is one of the techniques which can be used by the players of wind instruments to modify the quality of the sound. It has been intensely studied in the case of reed instruments but has received only little attention in the case of air-jet instruments. This paper presents a first study focused on changes in the vocal tract shape in recorder playing techniques. Measurements carried out with recorder players allow to identify techniques involving changes of the mouth shape as well as consequences on the sound. A second experiment performed in laboratory mimics the coupling with the vocal tract on an artificial mouth. The phase of the transfer function between the instrument and the mouth of the player is identified to be the relevant parameter of the coupling. It is shown to have consequences on the spectral content in terms of energy distribution among the even and odd harmonics, as well as on the stability of the first two oscillating regimes. The results gathered from the two experiments allow to develop a simplified model of sound production including the effect of changing the vocal tract shape. It is based on the modification of the jet instabilities due to the pulsating emerging jet. Two kinds of instabilities, symmetric and anti-symmetric, with respect to the stream axis, are controlled by the coupling with the vocal tract and the acoustic oscillation within the pipe, respectively. The symmetry properties of the flow are mapped on the temporal formulation of the source term, predicting a change in the even / odd harmonics energy distribution. The predictions are in qualitative agreement with the experimental observations

Regime change thresholds in flute-like instruments: influence of the mouth pressure dynamics

Since they correspond to a jump from a given note to another one, the mouth pressure thresholds leading to regime changes are particularly important quantities in flute-like instruments. In this paper, a comparison of such thresholds between an artificial mouth, an experienced flutist and a non player is provided. It highlights the ability of the experienced player to considerabily shift regime change thresholds, and thus to enlarge its control in terms of nuances and spectrum. Based on recent works on other wind instruments and on the theory of dynamic bifurcations, the hypothe- sis is tested experimentally and numerically that the dynamics of the blowing pressure influences regime change thresholds. The results highlight the strong influence of this parameter on thresholds, suggesting its wide use by experienced musicians. Starting from these observations and from an analysis of a physical model of flute-like instruments, involving numerical continuation methods and Floquet stability analysis, a phenomenological modelling of regime change is proposed and validated. It allows to predict the regime change thresholds in the dynamic case, in which time variations of the blowing pressure are taken into account

Is the jet-drive flute model able to produce modulated sounds like Flautas de Chinos ?

Flautas de chinos - prehispanic chilean flutes played during ritual celebrations in central Chile - are known to produce very particular beating sounds, the so-called sonido rajado. Some previous works have focused on the spectral analysis of these sounds, and on the input impedance of the complex resonator. However, the beating sounds origin remains to be investigated. Throughout this paper, a comparison is provided between the characteristics of both the sound produced by flautas de chinos and a synthesis sound obtained through time-domain simulation of the jet-drive model for flute-like instruments. Jet-drive model appears to be able to produce quasiperiodic sounds similar to sonido rajado. Finally, the analysis of the system dynamics through numerical continuation methods allows to explore the production mechanism of these quasiperiodic regimes.Comment: Stockholm Music Acoustics Conference, Stockholm : Sweden (2013

The Politics of Resonance

‘GIB SIE WIEDER’1 is a series of two political compositions, dedicated to exceptional performers Garth Knox (viola d’amore) and Rhodri Davies (harp). In this project the central focus is on resonance in both a musical and wider socio-cultural sense. Finding the term closely correlated to the construction of gender, I direct my inner ear to the hidden background noises of the organisation of society. As a woman and composer, I perceive aural patterns of individual and political significance. In this work my aim is to to deconstruct engrained structures of resonance and assumptions of gender, and redefine them from a personal perspective as the basis for a new compositional identity. In this article, I identify my political perspective as an artist, and describe how this affects and stimulates my creative process. I discuss the compositional approach taken in the two compositions making up ‘GIB SIE WIEDER’ and their public performances in 2014

Sound Generation by a Turbulent Flow in Musical Instruments - Multiphysics Simulation Approach -

Total computational costs of scientific simulations are analyzed between direct numerical simulations (DNS) and multiphysics simulations (MPS) for sound generation in musical instruments. In order to produce acoustic sound by a turbulent flow in a simple recorder-like instrument, compressible fluid dynamic calculations with a low Mach number are required around the edges and the resonator of the instrument in DNS, while incompressible fluid dynamic calculations coupled with dynamics of sound propagation based on the Lighthill's acoustic analogy are used in MPS. These strategies are evaluated not only from the viewpoint of computational performances but also from the theoretical points of view as tools for scientific simulations of complicated systems.Comment: 6 pages, 10 figure files, to appear in the proceedings of HPCAsia0

Gender differences in musical instrument choice

Historically, there have been differences in the musical instruments played by boys and girls with girls preferring smaller, higher pitched instruments. This paper explores whether these gender preferences have continued at a time when there is greater gender equality in most aspects of life in the United Kingdom. Data were collected from the 150 Music Services in England as part of a larger survey. Some provided data regarding the sex of pupils playing each instrument directly. In other cases, the pupils’ names and instruments were matched with data in the national Common Basic Data Set to establish gender. The findings showed distinctive patterns for different instruments. Girls predominated in harp, flute, voice, fife/piccolo, clarinet, oboe, and violin and boys in electric guitar, bass guitar, tuba, kit drums, tabla and trombone. The least gendered instruments were African drums, cornet, French horn, saxophone and tenor horn. The gendered pattern of learning was relatively consistent across education phases with a few exceptions. A model was developed which sets out the various influences which may explain the continuation of historical trends in instrument choice given the increased gender equity in UK society

A microtonal wind controller building on Yamaha’s technology to facilitate the performance of music based on the “19-EDO” scale

We describe a project in which several collaborators adapted an existing instrument to make it capable of playing expressively in music based on the microtonal scale characterised by equal divsion of the octave into 19 tones (“19-EDO”). Our objective was not just to build this instrument, however, but also to produce a well-formed piece of music which would exploit it idiomatically, in a performance which would provide listeners with a pleasurable and satisfying musical experience. Hence, consideration of the extent and limits of the playing-techniques of the resulting instrument (a “Wind-Controller”) and of appropriate approaches to the composition of music for it were an integral part of the project from the start. Moreover, the intention was also that the piece, though grounded in the musical characteristics of the 19-EDO scale, would nevertheless have a recognisable relationship with what Dimitri Tymoczko (2010) has called the “Extended Common Practice” of the last millennium. So the article goes on to consider these matters, and to present a score of the resulting new piece, annotated with comments documenting some of the performance issues which it raises. Thus, bringing the project to fruition involved elements of composition, performance, engineering and computing, and the article describes how such an inter-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary collaboration was co-ordinated in a unified manner to achieve the envisaged outcome. Finally, we consider why the building of microtonal instruments is such a problematic issue in a contemporary (“high-tech”) society like ours

Narrative music: towards an understanding of musical narrative functions in multimedia

As the computer screen is replacing the book as the dominant medium for communication (Kress, 2003), questions about how meaning is constituted by the multimodal interaction of different media (including music) is becoming increasingly important in contemporary research of pedagogy, sociology and media studies. The overall aim with this licentiate thesis is to explore musical narrative functions as they appear in multimedia such as film and computer games. The thesis is based on three publications. Publication 1 proposes a classification of musical narrative functions, with 6 narrative classes(the Emotive, Informative, Descriptive, Guiding, Temporal and Rhetorical classes) and 11 categories. The relational interplay of music with contextual factors is emphasized. Publication 2 describes the design of a software tool, REMUPP (Relations Between Musical Parameters and Perceived Properties), to be used for experimental studies of musical expression. REMUPP is used for real time alteration of musical expression, by the manipulation of musical parameters such as tempo, harmony, rhythm, articulation, etc. Publication 3 describes a quasi-experiment using REMUPP, where a group of young participants (12-13 years old) were given the task of adapting musical expression – by manipulating 7 parameters – to make it fit 3 visual scenes shown on a computer screen. They also answered a questionnaire asking about their musical backgrounds and habits of listening to music, watching movies and playing computer games. Numerical data from the manipulations were analyzed statistically with regards to the preferred values of the musical parameters in relation to the different visual scenes. The results indicated awareness and knowledge about codes and conventions of musical narrative functions, and were to some degree affected by the participants’ gender, musical backgrounds and media habits