Numerical approach for the tuning of tubes in musical instruments

Abstract

Musical instrument design is still a relatively complex task. It frequently relies on empirical and oversimplified analytical approaches. The current computation era may be coupled with these processes to generate easy using tools to aid the design and creation of musical instrument. This study uses numerical routines, based on the modal analysis of simple geometries employed in musical instruments, as a tool to help the intended instrument design. Aluminum tubes, with flexural vibrations designed to resonate in a C4 register were first tested by experimental modal analysis and these results were used as reference to validate the referred numerical approach. Overall, it is shown that the numerical results highly replicate the experimental results and may be further optimized to display an even better correlation. It is, therefore, concluded that this type of computational method may be a fast and easy tool for the tuning of musical instruments.