Investigating vocal tract modifications during saxophone performance

Abstract

Vocal tract resonances are used by single-reed woodwind players for tuning purposes, timbre modification and other musical effects. Using pressure or impedance measurements, the vocal tract influence on saxophone playing has been previously studied for isolated tones. The present study considers note transitions in which the players might perform vocal tract modifications. Mouth pressure, mouthpiece pressure and reed bending are measured in order to analyze the vocal tract while monitoring the tongue-reed interaction. A method to identify vocal tract modifications is proposed, in which the envelopes of the pressure signals are compared in the time domain. The results show that, during large pitch bends or when playing the harmonic series of a certain fingered note using the vocal tract, the amplitude of the mouth pressure is larger than the amplitude of the mouthpiece pressure. When playing fast intervals in legato articulation, this method allows to detect vocal tract modifications between notes. In some cases, an increase in the amplitude of the resonance inside the player’s mouth is observed at the end of a high note to support the production of the next low note. This is a strong indicator of the importance of vocal tract tuning in ordinary saxophone performance.