AIR-FLOW AND SOUND GENERATION IN MUSICAL WIND INSTRUMENTS

Although musical instruments function as closely integrated systems, it is convenient and indeed almost essential for their analysis to consider them in terms of at least two interacting subsystems. The first of these is the primary resonant system, which consists of a column of air, confined by rigid walls of more or less complex shape and having one or more openings. Such a system is generally not far from linear in its behavior and it can be treated, at least in principle, by the classical methods of acoustics. The second subsystem is the airdriven generator that excites the primary resonator. This subsystem is generally highly nonlinear, either intrinsically or through its couplings with the resonator system, and it is this nonlinearity that is responsible for the stability of the whole system as well as for much of its acoustic character.