Trois perspectives sur le timbre de la flûte traversière : instrumentale, perceptive et computationnelle

The aim of this thesis is to describe transverse flute timbre in a detailed and precise way, based on approaches that can be grouped in three main axes : instrumental, perceptual, and computational. Research disciplines such as organology, instrumental pedagogy, perceptual musical analysis, acoustics, psychoacoustics, information science and musical composition will contribute to determine which are the elements that characterize flute timbre. Many aspects related to the instrumental axis will be investigated. First, a historical view of the instrument’s organology is presented, with a special focus on practical and aesthetical aspects that influenced its evolution until nowadays. After an overview of instrumental pedagogy from the 19th Century onwards, the notion of extended technique is explained. Then, flute extended techniques are presented through a review of the main treatises on the subject, and a classification based on various systems is proposed. For the perceptual axis, perceptual musical analysis tools conceived for electroacoustic music are explored for their descriptive potential in regard of instrumental timbre. Typomorphological and spectromorphological approaches, as developed respectively by Pierre Schaeffer and Denis Smalley, are investigated. The aim is to see in what extent these two musical event description tools and distinct conceptions of musical listening can be useful in characterizing flute timbre. Furthermore, after distinctions between approaches such as those of music information retrieval and cognitive sciences have been made, a literature review of the major experiments on timbre perception in psychoacoustics is presented. Then, for the computational axis, the main libraries for timbre analysis are presented, after which a definition of the temporal, spectral, spectro-temporal, and harmonic timbre descriptors that will be used later on is given. The last three chapters are dedicated to acoustical analysis made on flute samples that are representative of most of the instrument’s playing techniques and timbre changes. A first experiment consists of a principal component analysis made on 34 timbre descriptors, in order to determine how groups of sounds are distinguishable from one another, and to find out which are the main descriptors that make this differentiation possible. A second experiment combines particular descriptors as an attempt to confirm and/or to precise the results v of the first experiment. Finally, a third experiment consists of a real-time analysis of sounds modulated by different kinds of vibrato, fluttertongue, and of some continuous timbre changes (such as vowel, brightness and pitch variations), made with zsa.descriptors objects in Max. This investigation has a twofold goal : first, to observe what characterizes the sound modulations and changes. And second, to better understand how descriptors vary over the course of time when applied to timbre changes, in order to be able to conceive effective mapping strategies in the context of electroacoustic mixed music and audiovisual interaction.

Keyphrases: perception, Flute, Instrumental timbre, Acoustics, Audio descriptors