Three-dimensional simulations of sound propagation in a trumpet with accurate mouthpiece shank geometry

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, 14, 20, 26]. In this paper, we propose a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inarXiv.org
Main Authors Resch, Janelle, Krivodonova, Lilia, Vanderkooy, John
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 01.11.2016
Subjects
Acoustics
Compressibility
Computer simulation
Euler-Lagrange equation
Galerkin method
Geometry
Mathematical models
Model accuracy
Musical instruments
Propagation
Sound propagation
Three dimensional models
Wave propagation
Waveforms
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary: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, 14, 20, 26]. 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. Time pressure waveforms corresponding to B_3(b) and B_4(b) notes were recorded at the mouthpiece shank and used as inputs for our model. To describe the motion of compressible inviscid fluid, we numerically solved the compressible Euler equations using the discontinuous Galerkin method. To validate our approach, the numerical results were compared to the recorded musical notes outside the bell of the trumpet. Simulations were performed on computational trumpets where different bore geometries were considered. Our results demonstrate that the shape of the narrow region near mouthpiece greatly influences the wave propagation and accuracy of the trumpet model.
ISSN:2331-8422