Transient behaviour in the motion of the brass player’s lips

In judging the quality of a brass wind musical instrument, a player evaluates a number of different properties of the instrument. One important indicator of quality is the ease with which different notes on the instrument can be made to sound. At the start of each note there is a transient stage during which the self-sustaining oscillation of the coupled system of lips and air column builds towards a fully developed steady-state regime. Use of a high speed digital video camera with a transparent mouthpiece allows visual inspection of the detailed motion of the player’s lips. Transient behaviour in the physical motion of the lips has been studied, and related to the psychoacoustically important transients in synchronised recordings of the sound.