An inward striking free reed coupled to a cylindrical pipe

A number of acoustical measurements have made on a reed-pipe combination consisting of a harmonium-type reed from an American reed organ installed at the closed end of a cylindrical pipe. This configuration, which somewhat resembles the configuration of free-reed organ pipes, differs from the reed-pipe combination occurring in the mouth organs of Asia, which use symmetric (outward striking) free reeds and normally operate on both possible directions of airflow. Measurements have been made of the sounding frequency, amplitude of vibration of the reed tongue, and the sound spectrum. Of particular interest is the degree to which the reed frequency can be altered by altering the pipe length, and hence the pipe resonance frequency. In this case the sounding frequency can be pulled considerably below the natural frequency of the reed. These results can be compared with the results of similar measurements on free-reed organ pipes [J. Braasch, C. Ahrens, J. P. Cottingham, and T. D. Rossing, Fortschr. Akust., DAGA (2000)]. In addition, some interesting ‘‘special effects’’ have been studied, which can be obtained using unusual pipe lengths and blowing in the ‘‘wrong’’ direction. [Work supported by the NSF from REU Grant No. 0139096.]