TY - JOUR
T1 - How clarinettists articulate : the effect of blowing pressure and tonguing on initial and final transients
AU - Li, Weicong
AU - Almeida, Andre
AU - Smith, John
AU - Wolfe, Joe
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Articulation, including initial and final note transients, is important to tasteful music performance. Clarinettists' tongue-reed contact, the time variation of the blowing pressure P ïmouth, the mouthpiece pressure, the pressure in the instrument bore, and the radiated sound were measured for normal articulation, accents, sforzando, staccato, and for minimal attack, i.e., notes started very softly. All attacks include a phase when the amplitude of the fundamental increases exponentially, with rates r ∼1000 dB s-1 controlled by varying both the rate of increase in P ïmouth and the timing of tongue release during this increase. Accented and sforzando notes have shorter attacks (r∼1300 dB s-1) than normal notes. P ïmouth reaches a higher peak value for accented and sforzando notes, followed by a steady decrease for accented notes or a rapid fall to a lower, nearly steady value for sforzando notes. Staccato notes are usually terminated by tongue contact, producing an exponential decrease in sound pressure with rates similar to those calculated from the bandwidths of the bore resonances: ∼400 dB s-1. In all other cases, notes are stopped by decreasing P ïmouth. Notes played with different dynamics are qualitatively similar, but louder notes have larger P ïmouth and larger r.
AB - Articulation, including initial and final note transients, is important to tasteful music performance. Clarinettists' tongue-reed contact, the time variation of the blowing pressure P ïmouth, the mouthpiece pressure, the pressure in the instrument bore, and the radiated sound were measured for normal articulation, accents, sforzando, staccato, and for minimal attack, i.e., notes started very softly. All attacks include a phase when the amplitude of the fundamental increases exponentially, with rates r ∼1000 dB s-1 controlled by varying both the rate of increase in P ïmouth and the timing of tongue release during this increase. Accented and sforzando notes have shorter attacks (r∼1300 dB s-1) than normal notes. P ïmouth reaches a higher peak value for accented and sforzando notes, followed by a steady decrease for accented notes or a rapid fall to a lower, nearly steady value for sforzando notes. Staccato notes are usually terminated by tongue contact, producing an exponential decrease in sound pressure with rates similar to those calculated from the bandwidths of the bore resonances: ∼400 dB s-1. In all other cases, notes are stopped by decreasing P ïmouth. Notes played with different dynamics are qualitatively similar, but louder notes have larger P ïmouth and larger r.
UR - https://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:64392
U2 - 10.1121/1.4941660
DO - 10.1121/1.4941660
M3 - Article
SN - 0001-4966
VL - 139
SP - 825
EP - 838
JO - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
JF - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
IS - 2
ER -