Multistability of saxophone oscillation regimes and its influence on sound production

The lowest fingerings of the saxophone can lead to several different regimes, depending on the musician’s control and the characteristics of the instrument. This is explored in this paper through a physical model of saxophone. The harmonic balance method shows that for many combinations of musician control parameters, several regimes are stable. Time-domain synthesis is used to show how different regimes can be selected through initial conditions and the initial evolution (rising time) of the blowing pressure, which is explained by studying the attraction basin of each stable regime. These considerations are then applied to study how the produced regimes are affected by properties of the resonator. The inharmonicity between the first two resonances is varied in order to find the value leading to the best suppression of unwanted overblowing. Overlooking multistability in this description can lead to biased conclusions. Results for all the lowest fingerings show that a slightly positive inharmonicity, close to that measured on a saxophone, leads to first register oscillations for the greatest range of control parameters. A perfect harmonicity (integer ratio between the first two resonances) decreases first register production, which adds nuance to one of Benade’s guidelines for understanding sound production. Thus, this study provides some a posteriori insight into empirical design choices relative to the saxophone.