Saxophone Multiphonics as Dynamical Regimes: From Composition to Performer Control

Abstract:

Saxophone multiphonics provide a rich setting for studying how musical gestures interact with nonlinear instrument dynamics. This talk presents a project that began with composition, perception, and timbral morphing and now connects performer control with bifurcation analysis and real-time modeling.

Earlier musical and psychophysical studies organized multiphonics according to their sonority, while spectral analysis and performance studies described continuous transformations between them. This led to a trajectory-based view in which multiphonics occupy regions of timbre space that performers navigate through coordinated changes in blowing, embouchure, and intonation.

The current work connects these timbral trajectories with the underlying dynamics. Experienced saxophonists performed the same tasks in two conditions, using an instrumented mouthpiece either to play an acoustic alto saxophone or to control a real-time dynamical model. Blowing pressure and lip force were measured during register changes and multiphonic production. The resulting trajectories were compared with the model’s bifurcation structure, relating performer gestures to changes in stability and coexistence among oscillation regimes.

The real-time model acts as a playable hypothesis about saxophone dynamics. Its regime organization is evaluated through the gestures and transitions that musicians can produce, providing performance-based evidence for its qualitative behavior and a way to investigate how its dynamics are accessed. The same framework supports an instrument-like approach to dynamical sound synthesis: modifying the model’s bifurcation structure can extend saxophone-like control toward new multiphonics and complex sonorities beyond the acoustic instrument.

Le mardi 8 septembre 2026 à 14h00 / Amphithéâtre François Canac, LMA