Many musical instruments, as for example woodwind instruments, flute or violins, are self-sustained oscillating systems, i.e. musician enacts as a continuous energy source to drive an oscillation in the passive resonator, the body of the instrument, by means of a nonlinear coupling. For single reed instruments like clarinet, there exists a minimal value of mouth pressure beyond which sound can appear. This paper deals with the analysis of this oscillation threshold, calculated using a modal decomposition of the resonator, in order to have a better comprehension of how reed characteristics, such as its strength and its damping, may influence the attack transient of notes.
@article{arxiv.0801.4697,
title = {Seuils d'instabilit\'e d'un instrument de musique \`a anche simple : approche modale},
author = {Fabrice Silva and Jean Kergomard},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0801.4697},
year = {2008}
}