SaxophoneEngineer
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Hello,
Why does the sax make its sound and how does a clarinet or oboe make its sound?
Why does the sax make its sound and how does a clarinet or oboe make its sound?
Hello,
Why does the sax make its sound and how does a clarinet or oboe make its sound?
I must pick you up there, as your otherwise astute analysis has a flaw. It does not apply to flutes. Flutes are tube-shaped but open at both ends so they can breathe more easily, which makes them more relaxed. An excited flute only behaves like two lilttle flutes.Clarinets are tube-shaped. The centre of the tube is removed in the factory and sold as a pencil. If you blow hard into a tube, it gets over-excited and behaves like three little tubes.
Cyclindrical (as you said earlier in your post) .The conical bore clarinet exhibits only the odd numbered harmonics
You need to be careful with wording here, the terminology is confusing.So am I right in saying when you hit the octave key you are pulling out a harmonic ?.
Blowing into the mouthpiece creates high pressure on the player side of the reed and lower pressure on the other side. This closes the reed which claps against the mouthpiece. A pulse of energy passes down the instrument, compressing air molecules as it goes, until it reaches the first open tone hole. The energy pulse then returns to the mouthpiece as the compressed molecules rearrange themselves, equalising pressure on the reed and enabling it to open again, at which point the sequence repeats. The energy travels back and forth at the speed of sound, therefore the tube length governs the frequency of the cycle, of the reed vibration, and hence the pitch of the note sounded.
I'm definitely not an expert on acoustics, but I don't think this is right. And it doesn't explain how flutes and recorders make their sound. @David Dorning seems to be describing a shock wave, which I presume is different from a standing wave.