Physical Modeling of the Ancient Greek Wind Musical Instrument Aulos: A Double-Reed Exciter Linked to an Acoustic Resonator

Abstract

We present a simulation method for the auralization of the ancient Greek double-reed wind instrument Aulos. The implementation is based on Digital Signal Processing and physical modeling techniques for the instrument’s two parts: the excitation mechanism and the acoustic resonator with toneholes. Single-reeded instruments are in-depth studied firstly because their excitation mechanism is the one used in a great amount of modern wind-reed instruments and secondly because the physics governing the phenomena is less complicated than the double-reeded instruments. We here provide a detailed model of a system comprised of a double-reed linked to an acoustic resonator with toneholes to sonify Aulos. We validate our results by comparing our method’s synthesized signal with recordings from a replica of Aulos of Poseidonia built in our lab. The comparison showed that the fundamental frequencies and the first three odd harmonics of the signals differ 6, 5, 3, and 2 cents on average, respectively, which is below the Just Noticeable Difference threshold.

Keywords

• Aulos
• digital signal processing
• digital waveguides
• double-reed
• musical acoustics