Effect of the shape of mouth pressure variation on dynamic oscillation threshold of a clarinet model

Abstract

Simple models of clarinet instruments based on iterated maps have been used in the past to successfully estimate the threshold of oscillation of this instrument as a function of a constant blowing pressure. However, when the blowing pressure gradually increases through time, the oscillations appear at a much higher value, called dynamic oscillation threshold, than what is predicted in the static case. This is known as bifurcation delay, a phenomenon studied in [1,2] for a clarinet model. In particular the dynamic oscillation threshold is predicted analytically when the blowing pressure is linearly increased. However, the mouth pressure cannot grow indefinitely. During a note attack, after an increasing phase, the musician stabilizes the mouth pressure. In the present work, the analytical prediction of the dynamic oscillation threshold is extended to a situations in which the mouth pressure approaches a steady state pressure according to an exponential time profile. The predictions still show a good agreement with simulation of the simple clarinet-model. This situation is compared in terms of dynamic oscillation bifurcation.