Acoustics of flute sound in laboratory experimental conditions

Experimental studies of musical performance are often performed in laboratories with sometimes invasive apparatus. A concern often raised by musicians is that recordings obtained in such laboratory conditions may not reflect what would occur in a real performance. This study aims to provide an assessment of the extent to which data acquired in an invasive experiment, involving the physiology of flute performance, represents what would occur in actual performance. Five professional flutists, playing on the same flute, performed four well-known pieces of the flute repertoire in invasive and noninvasive conditions. The invasive condition consisted of apparatus on the flute head joint to measure the jet velocity and lip aperture, and trans-nasal catheters to measure respiratory pressures. The noninvasive condition occurred before the apparatus had been attached, but with other conditions kept as consistent as possible. The acoustic output of the flute was recorded and characterized by measuring the fundamental frequency and relative magnitudes of the harmonics. The results did not show any significant change in the acoustic parameters overall, although several subjects exhibited some differences (