NL2008423C2

NL2008423C2 - Wind instrument mouthpiece.

Info

Publication number: NL2008423C2
Application number: NL2008423A
Authority: NL
Inventors: Jouke Casper Verlinden; Eugeni Leonidovitsch Doubrovski
Original assignee: Univ Delft Tech
Priority date: 2012-03-07
Filing date: 2012-03-07
Publication date: 2013-09-10

Description

Wind instrument mouthpiece

The invention relates to a wind instrument mouthpiece comprising a tip- portion and a barrel portion, integrated in 5 one piece or separable. The invention also relates to a wind instrument comprising said mouthpiece.

Wind instruments are instruments that belong to either the brass, or woodwind families.

The range of wind instrument mouthpiece designs cur-10 rently available on the market is relativelty limited. This is at least in part due to limitations of techniques such as CNC (computer numerical control) milling or hand-crafting that are used for their manufacture. Development of new designs is typically expensive and time consuming and hence most of the cur-15 rently available wind instrument mouthpieces are based closely on traditional "tried-and-tested" designs.

Despite these problems, a number of mouthpieces are known in the prior art which comprise elements for modifying air-flow through the mouthpiece. The purpose of including such 20 elements is to adjust to some extent the sound of an instrument with which the mouthpiece.is used.

US 4,041,827-A is an example of such a mouthpiece of the prior art.

US 4,041,827-A recites a tone enhancing element in-25 corporated within the mouthpiece of a reed type musical instrument, such as a saxophone or clarinet. The mouthpiece has two steps projecting into the air flow-through passage of the mouthpiece at a point opposite the opening over which the reed is mounted. The first step in from the outward end of the 30 mouthpiece is the lower of the two, projecting into the passage less than the second step. The element may be a removable element that can be taken out for cleaning, for example, or it may be an integral portion of the mouthpiece structure.

It is an object of the invention to provide novel and 35 inventive alternatives to the wind instrument mouthpieces of the prior art.

In a first aspect, the invention relates to a wind instrument mouthpiece comprising a tip portion and a barrel portion, integrated in one piece or separable, wherein the 2 mouthpiece further comprises one or more longitudinal partitions in the tip and/or barrel portions, to create chambers therein.

By dividing the tip and/or barrel portion to create 5 chambers, control can be achieved over the musical envelope of a wind instrument incorporating the mouthpiece. The musical envelope consists of the attack, sustain, and decay of a sound. Attack transients consist of changes occurring before the sound reaches its steady-state intensity. Sustain refers 10 to the steady state of a sound at its maximum intensity, and decay is the rate at which it fades to silence. Envelope: the combination of the three components of a dynamic musical tone, is an important element of timbre, the distinctive quality, or tone colour, of a sound.

15 In a preferred embodiment, the one or more longitudi nal partitions have an aerofoil-like cross-section to control airflow inside the chambers.

The way in which air flows around an aerofoil is well understood and mathematical models exist to predict how a par-20 ticular aerofoil shape will effect air flow around the aerofoil. An advantage of including an aerofoil shaped partition is that it allows airflow through a mouthpiece to be tuned in a predictable way.

In a preferred embodiment, the longitudinal parti-25 tions span the cross-section of the tip and/or barrel portions .

By spanning the cross-section of the tip and or barrel portions, turbulence inside the respective chambers is separated, which may result in surprising sound effects.

30 The one or more partitions may divide the tip and or barrel portions into chambers having cros-sections of identical, or non-identical dimensions. Both may be desirable depending on the effect on the sound envelope which is to be achieved.

35 In a preferred embodiment, the wind instrument mouth piece is composed of a material suitable for 3D-printing.

Materials that are suitable for 3D printing include: acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polycarbonate (PC), polyphenylsulfone (PPSU), polyamide (PA), polyether ether ke- 3 tone (PEEK), polystyrene (PS), polyacetic acid (PLA), alumide, carbonamide, elastomers, titanium alloys, plaster, resins, any future suitable new materials, and combinations thereof.

By composing the mouthpiece of a material that is 5 suitable for 3D printing, and manufacturing it by 3D printing, wind instrument mouthpieces with complex internal structures can be produced rapidly e.g. within several hours. Furthermore, wherein a material such as a plastic e.g. polyamide, is used, mouthpieces can also be produced cheaply e.g. for less 10 than a euro.

3D printing processes, also known as additive manufacturing, include: fused deposition modeling (FDM), selective laser sintering (SLS), direct metal laser sintering (DMLS), Electron beam melting (EBM), stereolithography (SLA), digital 15 light processing (DLP), etc.

If an item can be drawn in three dimensions, a model can typically also be manufactured by 3D printing. By composing wind instrument mouthpieces of materials that are suitable for 3D printing, designs can quickly be converted into proto-20 types for testing, thus assisting research into mouthpiece design and facilitating the design of custom mouthpieces to provide instruments having custom sound envelopes and/or acoustic properties in general.

Research by the inventors has shown that the form of 25 a mouthpiece has a bigger influence on the sound envelope of a wind instrument incorporating the mouthpiece than does the material from which it is constructed.

In a preferred embodiment, the mouthpiece is a clarinet or saxophone mouthpiece.

30 In a second aspect, the invention relates to a wind instrument having a main body, and comprising a wind instrument mouthpiece comprising a tip portion and a barrel portion, integrated in one piece or separable, wherein the internal diameter of the distal end of the barrel portion and the proxi-35 mal end of the main body, are substantially the same.

Such an arrangement is advantageous since it reduces turbulence within the main body of the wind instrument. This is typically desirable.

4

The term "main body" is used to describe the part or parts of a wind instrument that are not the tip portion or barrel portion from which the mouthpiece is comprised. For example; the proximal end of the main body of a saxophone would - 5 be the end of a neck of the saxophone to which the mouthpiece is connected or is connectable. A person of skill in the art is able to recognise the neck of a saxophone and to identify comparable parts on other wind instruments.

In a third aspect, the invention relates to a wind 10 instrument comprising the wind instrument mouthpiece of the invention, wherein the internal diameter of the distal end of the barrel portion and the proximal end of the main body, are substantially the same.

The invention will hereafter be further elucidated 15 with reference to the Drawing of Figure 1 showing preferred embodiments of the wind instrument mouthpiece of the invention. The Drawing is provided for illustrative purposes only and is not to be considered limiting of the claims.

Where in the Drawing the same reference characters or 20 numerals are used, these characters or numerals refer to the same parts.

Figures la and lb show alternative preferred embodiments of the wind instrument mouthpiece 1 of the invention comprising a tip portion T and a barrel portion B, integrated 25 in one piece, wherein the mouthpiece 1 further comprises a longitudinal partition 2 in the tip T portion, to create chambers of equal dimensions C therein. In alternative embodiments, the partitions may run for only a proportion of the length of the tip T and/or barrel portions B, or may run the 30 entire length. The embodiment of Figure la comprises a horizontal partition 2, the embodiment of Figure lb comprises a vertical partition 2. The partition of embodiment 2 has an aerofoil-like cross-section. Vertical and Horizontal are defined with a long axis of the mouthpiece being in a horizontal 35 plane, with a read of the wind instrument mouthpiece, in this case a clarinet mouthpiece, being on the bottom side of the mouthpiece. The tip portion T comprises a mouth-contactable part and extends to the end of a sloped portion to which a read is mountable; the barrel portion is the portion of rough- 5 ly constant diameter that is connectable to a main body of a wind instrument. The mouthpiece can suitably be composed of a material that is suitable for 3D printing.

Figures lc and Id show two embodiments of a mouth-5 piece 1 configured such that it may be coupled to a main barrel of a wind instrument (not shown) such that the internal diameter of the distal end of the barrel portion D and the proximal end of the main body (not shown), are substantially the same. This is achieved by providing an inner-tube 3 in the 10 barrel portion B. The main body and the mouthpiece 1 interlock, or otherwise couple, such that a coupling means does not occupy the internal space of the inner tube 3 or the main body. In wind instruments of the prior art, a cork ring is typically provided on either the mouthpiece or the main body 15 that serves to fix the two parts together by being passed inside of the corresponding mouthpiece or main body. Such is familiar to a person of skill in the art and requires no further elucidation with reference to the drawing.

Claims

A mouthpiece (1) for a wind instrument comprising a tip part (T) and a body part (B), which are integrated in one part or are separable from one another, characterized in that the mouthpiece (1) furthermore comprises one or more longitudinal - has 5 rings (2) in the tip (T) and / or body (B) parts for providing chambers (C) therein.

2. Mouthpiece (1) for the wind instrument according to claim 1, characterized in that the one or more longitudinal partitions (2) have an aerodynamically shaped cross-section for controlling the air flow in the chambers (C).

3. A mouthpiece (1) for a wind instrument according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that the longitudinal distributions (2) span the cross-section of the tip (T) and / or body (B) parts.

Mouthpiece (1) for a wind instrument according to one or more of claims 1-3, characterized in that the chambers (C) each have substantially identical dimensions.

5. A mouthpiece (1) for a wind instrument according to one or more of claims 1-3, characterized in that two or more of the chambers (C) have unequal dimensions.

6. A mouthpiece (1) for a wind instrument according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that the mouthpiece (1) for the wind instrument is composed of a material suitable for "additive manufacturing".

Mouthpiece (1) for a wind instrument according to one or more of the preceding claims, characterized in that the mouthpiece is a clarinet or saxophone mouthpiece.

8. Wind instrument with a main body and provided with the mouthpiece (1) according to the preamble of claims 1, characterized in that the internal diameter of the distal end of the trunk part (D) and the proximal end of the main body to be.

9. A wind instrument with a main body and provided with the mouthpiece (1) according to one or more of claims 1-7, characterized in that the internal diameter of the distal end of the trunk part (D) and the proximal end of the main body are substantially the same.