ìOn the Relative Influence of Even and Odd Harmonics in the Clarinet Timbreî

 

Mathieu Barthet, Philippe Guillemain,

Richard Kronland-Martinet, Solvi Ystad

 

International Computer Music Conference
Barcelona, September 5-9, 2005

 

 

Sound examples:

 

 

10 sounds have been generated with the model in order to point out changes in the soundís timbre which occur in a beating-reed situation.

 

For that purpose we used the following control parameters:

 

- The dimensionless mouth pressure Gamma increases from 0.40 to 0.50.

- The fundamental frequency of the bore has been set to 170 Hz.

- The dimensionless parameter characterizing the embouchure Zeta has been set to 0.33.

- The reed resonance frequency has been set to 2500 Hz.

 

The sampling frequency has been set to 44.1 kHz and the number of samples is 32768.

 

All the sounds have been equalized in loudness according to the Zwicker loudness model (ISO 523B) in order to avoid perceptual variations of timbre due to loudness.

 

Please click on the link below to download a file (wav file).

 

 

Gamma

0.40

0.41

0.42

0.43

0.44

0.46

0.47

0.48

0.49

0.50

 

Non beating-reed situation

Beating-reed situation

 

 

 

 

Notice the change in the soundís timbre when Gamma is greater than 0.47, which corresponds to the beating-reed case. One reason why the timbre becomes much brighter is the increase of high frequency even harmonics due to the closure of the mouthpiece.