Transients in Wood Winds and Brasses
Herbert M. Neustadt · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1963
An interesting transient effect occurs in a flute, or other wind musical instrument, when it plays in sequence two tones that are more than a semitone apart in pitch. If the pitch change is made abruptly (1) tone generation decreases and may stop momentarily even if air supply is held constant at the mouthpiece—that is, oscillation decays at the old frequency and then builds up again at the new; (2) the ear does not perceive that oscillation is interrupted; (3) if the pitch change were made without the interruption—that is, at constant amplitude—a click would be heard accompanying the pitch change. These statements are demonstrated by means of an electronic device. The transient behavior of the wind instruments is analyzed by use of equivalent circuits in which the mouthpiece is represented as a negative resistance. [This work was supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the U. S. Office of Naval Research.]