Acoustics of reed woodwinds

NEW: Clarinet acoustics

Introduction

• For a simple introduction to this family of instruments, see How do woodwind instruments work?.
• For a simple introduction to clarinet acoustics, see Introduction to clarinet acoustics.
  See also the Clarinet acoustics home page.
• For a simple introduction to saxophone acoustics, see Introduction to saxophone acoustics.
• For an explanation of the harmonic series produced by cylindrical and conical bores, with open and/or closed ends, see Cylindrical and conical bores and Flutes vs clarinets.

Our research

Most of our research on the reed instruments is on how the vocal tract of the player interacts with the reed and with the bore of the instrument. The bore of the instrument has strong resonances, as does the reed. The resonances of the vocal tract are not so strong, but are still very important musically. We measure the impedance of the vocal tract of the player using equipment developed for research on the vocal tract and that of the instrument using techniques developed for researching flutes. Our research on vocal tract-reed instrument interactions has not yet been published.

One FAQ is "When will we do for the other wind instruments the same things that we have done for the flutes?". The answer is that we are working on the clarinet, and hope to have a series of web pages devoted to that instrument soon. The saxophone, bassoon and oboe are for the future. If you are interested in working in these areas, let us know.