Link between objective and subjective characterizations of Bb clarinet reeds

This paper deals with the subjective and mechanical characterizations of single cane reeds. Subjective tests performed by a single expert gave an estimation of the subjective descriptors “ease of playing”, “brightness”, “roundness”, “projection” and “global quality”. The mechanical characterization involved measurements of static compliance, dynamic compliance, resonance frequency and Q factor of the first vibration mode. Two sets of clarinet reeds were studied. The first set contained 50 reeds identical in cut, brand and strength. The second set contained 150 reeds with 3 different cuts but identical in brand, strength and static compliance. Results show that the perceptual space is almost bi-dimensional for the first set of reeds and mono-dimensional for the second set. For the first set, the two dimensions were largely created by the descriptors ease of playing (highly correlated to brightness) and roundness. For the second set (with a constant static compliance), the main dimension was created by all the descriptors, that are correlated. The study of correlation coefficients between subjective descriptors and mechanical parameters shows that the static and dynamic compliance are correlated with the descriptor ease of playing for set 1. For set 2, the correlations are too low to make a link between the perceptual space and the objective parameters.