Simulation of articulation and rhythmic techniques on the saxophone
Andrii Gudzyk · Humanities science current issues · 2021
The article describes the physical modeling of wind instruments provides digital sound synthesis based on a set of parameters that have a direct physical interpretation.Going beyond sound synthesis programs, such models can be used to analyze the mechanism of sound generation.Blowing into the mouthpiece of a saxophone allows the player to control the oscillation of the reed by creating a pressure difference across its surface.When the reed oscillates, it creates an alternating opening and closure to the bore, resulting in a periodic train of pressure pulses, or a reed pulse sequence, that enters into the instrument bore.The propagation of pressure waves in the cylindrical and predominantly conical sections of the saxophone may be modeled in one dimension using a digital waveguide, with a bi-directional delay line accounting for the acoustic propagation delay, and additional filter elements accounting for losses distributed along the length of the instrument and at the boundaries.Though open tone holes, used by the player to control sounding pitch, do complicate the issue, they can still be modeled within a one-dimensional waveguide context by lumping their effects at waveguide boundaries (i.e. with the bell).For wind instruments, one of the primary ways in which a performer controls sound production, aside from changing pitch using instrument tone holes/keys, is by changing the air flow into the bore through alterations of blowing pressure and embouchure.In saxophone playing, estimation of the signal generated by the reed, the reed pulse, by inverse filtering the effects of the instrument can, therefore, yield a signal holding many of the more subtle playing parameters.In this publication, we approach also the problem of visualizing the playing of the saxophone from the standpoint of the psychomotorical skills of the instrumentalist performer, due to the nature of the instrument, the specifics of sound production on it, as well as the structure of the intonational-artistic image -the subject of imitation, embodiment and communication.