To Play or Not to Play von Steiger, Adrian; Allenbach, Daniel; Skamletz, Martin
2023
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The present volume brings together the results of a multidisciplinary research project on corrosion inside historical brass instruments. In this SNSF-funded project Brass Instruments Between ...Preventive Conservation and Use in Historically Informed Performance, the Hochschule der Künste Bern collaborated with the Swiss National Museum, the Paul Scherrer Institute, the Institute for Building Materiales at ETH and Klingendes Museum Bern, among others. The results – here complemented with further contributions on the topic of conservation of brass instruments, especially in museum settings – have been presented at the Fourth International Romantic Brass Symposium (2017), organised together with the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Instruments and Music (CIMCIM). Musicological and organological questions meet chemical and physical analyses, which in turn are considered in terms of their manageability and practical relevance in the museum context.
•3D time-domain simulations of nonlinear sound wave propagation in the trombone.•Numerical verification that shock waves can be produced in the trombone.•Measurements and numerical simulations of ...real musical notes.
The brassy timbre associated with loudly played trombone notes is due to the accumulated effects of nonlinear wave propagation. Hirschberg et al. experimentally showed in J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 99, 1754–1758 that wave steepening of such tones can be strong enough to produce shock waves. In this paper, pressure measurements collected along the trombone bore are presented and then numerically simulated using a three-dimensional time-domain model. The numerical solutions reveal that shock waves do form within the computational instrument within the vicinity of the approximated shock distance.
•Three-dimensional time-domain simulations of nonlinear sound wave propagation in trumpets via the compressible Euler equations.•Examination of the importance and influence of the initial bore ...geometry.•Measurements and numerical simulations of real musical notes.
The length and bore geometry of musical instruments directly influences the quality of sound that can be produced. In brass instruments, nonlinear effects from finite-amplitude wave propagation can lead to wave distortion giving sounds a brassy timbre 3,5,16,22,29. In this paper, we propose a three-dimensional model to describe nonlinear wave propagation in a trumpet and investigate the importance of the mouthpiece shank geometry. The time pressure waveforms corresponding to B3b and B4b notes at the mouthpiece were recorded at the mouthpiece shank are recorded and used as inputs for our model. To incorporate compressibility and nonlinear effects, the compressible Euler equations are used to describe the evolution of the nonlinear waves. The system was solved numerically using the discontinuous Galerkin method. The numerical results were compared with the waveforms of the musical notes, which were also measured outside the bell of the trumpet, to validate our approach. Simulations were run for both notes in computational trumpets where different bore geometries were modelled. Our results demonstrate that the shape of the narrow region near the mouthpiece greatly influences the wave propagation and must be considered in a trumpet model.
An optimization method is proposed to find mask parameters of a brass player coming from a one degree of freedom lip model, with only constant mouth pressure and periodic mouthpiece pressure as input ...data, and a cost function relying on the waveform and the frequency of the signal. It delivers a set of parameters called -admissible, which is a subset of all mask parameters that allow the inverse problem to be well defined up to an acceptable precision. Values for the mask parameters are found that give a good aproximation of real signals, with an error on the playing frequency of less than 5 cents for some notes. The evolution of the mask parameters is assessed during recordings with real musicians playing bend notes and their effects on the playing frequency are compared to the theoretical change on a model.
Brass players are exposed to high musculoskeletal strains during their instrumental play. Various assessments can be used to measure these strains, whereby a targeted therapy can also be supported. ...The aim of this study was to review literature concerning assessments used in quantitatively based studies about the analysis of musculoskeletal loads of brass players.
The Cochrane Library, PubMed, CINAHL, PEDro as well as the journal “Medical Problems of Performing Artists” were searched for relevant studies.
Two reviewers independently applied the inclusion and exclusion criteria to select potential studies. A third reviewer was involved in the case of discrepancies.
Two reviewers independently extracted the data.
A total of 73 studies conducted between 2004 and 2019 were included. Within a total of 30 studies, 18 assessments could be found that collect 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional kinematic data using video- or image-based analysis of posture, sonographic, optoelectronic and various electromagnetic systems. In 7 studies kinetic data were measured by force-transducers, pressure platforms, stabilizer and dynamometer. Fifteen studies used clinical examinations and additional assessments to screen individual body regions and 9 studies derived electromyography measurements from a total of 25 muscles. Thirty-one partially validated questionnaires were used to record musculoskeletal pain of brass players.
A variety of assessments can be used to optimize analysis and treatment procedures in research and clinical work. Future studies should both examine quality criteria of the various assessment methods and validate clinical examinations and questionnaires.
The ghost note is a natural note which can be played exclusively on bass brass instruments with a predominantly-expanding bore profile such as tubas, euphoniums or saxhorns. It stands between the ...pedal note – the lowest natural note playable, or first regime – and the instrument’s second regime. However, if the interval between the pedal note and the second regime remains close to an octave regardless of the instrument, the interval between the pedal note and the ghost note vary from a minor third to a perfect fourth. References about this note are very scarce, and it is not commonly known among tuba players. This study shows that an elementary brass model describing the player coupled to the instrument is capable of bringing both the ghost and the pedal note to light. Here, we adopt a dynamical systems point of view and perform a bifurcation analysis using a software of numerical continuation. The numerical results provided in terms of frequency intervals between pedal note and ghost note are compared with frequency intervals experimentally inferred from recordings of seven different types of tuba, each of them being played by two professional tuba players.
In the brass instrument family, the sound can be modified or attenuated using a mute, which is usually inserted in the bell of the instrument. The objective of this paper is to study the principle ...and the technological feasibility of an active mute using loudspeakers placed in front or around the instrument bell. This mute must reduce the acoustic power emitted by the instrument while avoiding any impact on its playability. At this stage, an optimal control is considered and no real-time controller is implemented. Results show that an active control placed outside the trombone is theoretically feasible and can be efficient to reduce the acoustic power up to 2000 Hz by placing a ring of sources around the bell and a source in front of the trombone. The instrument input impedance is very slightly affected by the control. In accordance with numerical simulations, the experiment showed that placing a control speaker very close in front of the bell of the instrument modifies the pressure field of the instrument in such a way that it allows to obtain a power attenuation greater than the predicted one. The control is technologically achievable but requires a high power for the closest source.
In this study, an acoustic resonator – a bass brass instrument – with multiple resonances coupled to an exciter – the player’s lips – with one resonance is modelled by a multidimensional dynamical ...system, and studied using a continuation and bifurcation software. Bifurcation diagrams are explored with respect to the blowing pressure, in particular with focus on the minimal blowing pressure allowing stable periodic oscillations and the associated frequency. The behaviour of the instrument is first studied close to a (non oscillating) equilibrium using linear stability analysis. This allows to determine the conditions at which an equilibrium destabilises and as such where oscillating regimes can emerge (corresponding to a sound production). This approach is useful to characterise the ease of playing of a brass instrument, which is assumed here to be related – as a first approximation – to the linear threshold pressure. In particular, the lower the threshold pressure, the lower the physical effort the player has to make to play a note The Science of Brass Instruments. Springer-Verlag, 2021. Cases are highlighted where periodic solutions in the bifurcation diagrams are reached for blowing pressures below the value given by the linear stability analysis. Thus, bifurcation diagrams allow a more in-depth analysis. Particular attention is devoted to the first playing regime of bass brass instruments (the pedal note and the ghost note of a tuba in particular), whose behaviour qualitatively differs from a trombone to a euphonium for instance.
Numerical continuation using the Asymptotic Numerical Method (ANM), together with the Harmonic Balance Method (HBM), makes it possible to follow the periodic solutions of non-linear dynamical systems ...such as physical models of wind instruments. This has been recently applied to practical problems such as the categorization of musical instruments from the calculated bifurcation diagrams V. Fréour et al. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 148 (2020)
https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0001603
. Nevertheless, one problem often encountered concerns the uncertainty on some parameters of the model (reed parameters in particular), the values of which are set almost arbitrarily because they are too difficult to measure experimentally. In this work we propose a novel approach where constraints, defined from experimental measurements, are added to the system. This operation allows uncertain parameters of the model to be relaxed and the continuation of the periodic solution with constraints to be performed. It is thus possible to quantify the variations of the relaxed parameters along the solution branch. The application of this technique to a physical model of a trumpet is presented in this paper, with constraints derived from experimental measurements on a trumpet player.
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