Acquisition and study of blowing pressure profiles in recorder playing

Abstract

This paper presents a study of blowing pressure profiles acquired from recorder playing. Blowing pressure signals are captured from real performance by means of a a low-intrusiveness acquisition system constructed around commercial pressure sensors based on piezoelectric transducers. An alto recorder was mechanically modified by a luthier to allow the measurement and connection of sensors while respecting playability and intrusiveness. A multi-modal database including aligned blowing pressure and sound signals is constructed from real practice, covering the performance space by considering different fundamental frequencies, dynamics, articulations and note durations. Once signals were pre-processed and segmented, a set of temporal envelope features were defined as a basis for studying and constructing a simplified model of blowing pressure profiles in different performance contexts.