A practical way to measure intonation quality of woodwind instruments using standard equipment without custom made adapters

Abstract

Woodwinds are not much different from brass instruments in how intonation is determined by air column resonances. Nevertheless, it is easier to measure input impedance of brasses because the input cross‐section at the mouthpiece rim is circular, plane and big enough to be easily coupled to standard measuring heads. In reed instruments the input cross‐section is neither flat nor circular nor well defined. Flute instruments not even have any definable input cross‐section as this is controlled by the player's lower lip. On top of that, flutes are played at an open end where some coupled impedance considerably influenced by the nearby environment like lips, mouth, and face of the player has to be taken into account. Existing approaches to measure input impedance of woodwind instruments usually require custom made adaptors optimised to yield nearly accurate intonation results for a specific instrument and playing range only. The proposed new approach is to separate instrument head or mouthpiece from the body and measure both parts from their cylindrical ends. During the measurement a natural playing condition can be simulated at the now available end. Both measurements can be assembled computationally yielding useful intonation results as will be demonstrated for flutes and saxophones.