A relation between characteristics and the softness of sound played on the Clarinets

In wind ensembles, aligning not only pitch and timing but also the softness of the sound is said to be essential when multiple performers play the same piece. Particularly in clarinet performance, it is said that without the ability to control the softness, it becomes difficult to adapt to the wind ensemble's repertoire. While many instructional books provide basic exercises for aligning pitch and timing, there are very few that focus on exercises addressing the softness of sound, and there is little research that has investigated procedures for objectively evaluating softness. Therefore, this study examines the acoustic characteristics that represent the softness of sound played on the clarinet and explores the relationship between these characteristics and the perceived softness. Investigations were carried out by using clarinet performance recorded sounds that listeners could perceive the softness intended by the performer in the same way. Then, three specific acoustic characteristics were extracted from those performance sounds: the slope of the attack, spectral centroid, and spectral flux. The relationship between those characteristics and the softness was analyzed. As a result, it was found that those three acoustic characteristics influence the softness in clarinet performance.