Saxophone Acoustics: Harmonic Partials, Pitch Bending, and Multiphonics
Every Harvard undergraduate has a set of courses he or she is required to take to graduate, which are called General Education courses; it's pretty much like distribution requirements, which you find at most 4-year colleges. I elected to take a course this semester called "Why You Hear What You Hear: The Science of Sound and Music" to fulfill a requirement called "Science of the Physical Universe." The course is taught by Eric J. Heller , a professor of chemistry and physics who's best known for his work in quantum mechanics and quantum chaos but has also been interested in the science of sound (he's an amateur trumpet player and also creates digital art on the side). The most recent material we've covered in class has been about wind instruments and the voice, and I was asked to demonstrate several sonic properties of the saxophone in class this past Monday. The results were analyzed briefly by Professor Heller, and I thought I'd share the le...