Investigation of bassoon embouchures with an artificial mouth

Timo Grothe

Playing double-reed woodwinds in tune requires individual embouchure adjustments for each fingering. By pressing his lips to the opposing reed blades, the musician can fine-tune the amplitude and frequency of oscillation, which is only roughly set by the fingering. For a controlled study under realistic conditions, an artificial mouth with adjustable lips has been constructed which enables the measurement of the integral force exerted to the reed while playing. Experimental results on a synthetic bassoon double-reed are presented. The reed's resonance frequency and damping are estimated based on acoustic impedance measurements at the reed outflow end. In the quasi-stationary flow regime, pressure-flow characteristics were recorded with respect to the lip force and lip position on the double-reed. For a lumped reed-model, parameters corresponding to realistic embouchures can be deduced. In the dynamic regime, for all standard fingerings, values for time-averaged lip force and blowing pressure are identified at which the instrument sounds at a fixed nominal frequency ($f_0~$=~58-620~\mathrm{Hz}). This investigation provides insights into the necessary embouchure corrections of a bassoonist while playing successive notes in tune at a given dynamic level. The obtained parameter ranges might be useful for physical modelling of the bassoon.

Mots clés: Musical Acoustics; Bassoon; Lip Force

Domaines: Acoustique [physics.class-ph]

Timo Grothe. Investigation of bassoon embouchures with an artificial mouth. Acoustics 2012, Apr 2012, Nantes, France. ⟨hal-00811179⟩