User Manual

ARTURIA – BRASS 2 – USER’S MANUAL

length of the reed is reduced too much.

Once he has found the right amount of pressure, the saxophonist breathes in the

instrument by increasing the pressure in his lungs and mouth. Once again this pressure

must be strong enough to inject the proper amount of energy into the instrument

allowing it to create and maintain the oscillations, but not so strong that it risks holding

the reed against the mouthpiece, closing off the entry of air.

Playing parameters Pinch on the Mouthpiece

8.3.2 Pressure

It goes without saying that the most important attribute of the process is the air pressure

imposed by the musician when he breathes into the mouthpiece. This factor largely

affects the note’s sound volume because it is the pressure provided by the

instrumentalist that injects energy into the saxophone. If the pressure is too weak there

will not be enough energy to maintain the oscillation in the instrument (we say that it is

below the threshold of oscillations). However, if it becomes too strong the pressure

forces the reed to a nearly closed position against the mouthpiece; after a certain

amount of pressure, the reed will stay stuck against the mouthpiece impeding the flow of

air into the instrument (we say it is above the plating threshold). To simplify a bit, if the

musician doesn’t breathe enough or breathes too much, he will not obtain a sound!

Luckily, there remains a large range of possible pressure. More than the sound volume,

the timbre varies a lot between two limits: a more muffled sound for weaker pressures

and brighter sound for a stronger amount of pressure. Enriching the timbre while

increasing the pressure corresponds to the shocks between the reed and the mouthpiece

leading to a progressive distortion of the sound wave.

8.3.2.1 Timbre

Next, we will talk about the pinch of the lips on the reed; this causes the position of the

reed equilibrium to vary in its range of vibration. We can say at first approximation that

this parameter makes a scale of reed oscillations, making the pressure thresholds

described above vary. This means that we could obtain a more intense sound while

keeping a similar timbre by simply increasing the pressure and the pinch of the reed at

the same time. By keeping the pressure constant and modifying the pressure of the lips,

we move between the timbres described above without modifying the intensity too