Scientific Article

Deriving played trumpet directivity patterns from a multiple-capture transfer-function technique

¹ Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Institute Jean le Rond d’Alembert, UMR 7190, 4 Place Jussieu, 75005 Paris, France
² Acoustics Research Group, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA

^* Corresponding author: samuel.bellows11@gmail.com

Received: 9 January 2024
Accepted: 9 December 2024

Abstract

The directional radiation patterns of musical instruments have long been defining characteristics known to influence their perceived qualities. Technical understanding of musical instrument directivities is essential for applications such as concert hall design, auralizations, and recording microphone placements. Nonetheless, the difficulties in measuring sound radiation from musician-played instruments at numerous locations over a sphere have severely limited their directivity measurement resolutions compared to standardized loudspeaker resolutions. This work illustrates how a carefully implemented multiple-capture transfer-function method adapts well to played musical instrument directivities and achieves compatible resolutions. Comparisons between a musician-played and artificially excited trumpet attached to a mannikin validate the approach’s effectiveness. The results demonstrate the trumpet’s highly directional characteristics at high frequencies and underscore the crucial effects of musician diffraction. Spherical spectral analysis reveals that standardized resolutions may only be sufficient to produce valid complex-valued directivities up to nearly 4 kHz, emphasizing the need for high-resolution, played musical instrumentdirectivity measurements.