Sound radiation pattern of the sheng pipes

Framed by a common research program of Chinese Academy of Sciences and of the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, a cooperation project on the acoustics of Chinese and European wind instruments has been established. The sound radiation pattern of the sheng, which is a traditional Chinese mouth organ with lingual pipes, was investigated by a microphone array system in a semi-anechoic room. Near field sound pressure measurement of 4 selected sheng pipes were taken around the complete sheng in every 30 degrees. The active intensity distribution in horizontal and vertical directions was analyzed in different frequency ranges. For comparison, 2 individual sheng pipes and 4 individual labial organ pipes were also investigated in the same way. The radiation pattern of the first several harmonics is different and it depends on the physical structure of the pipe and the scattering objects around. The results of this paper provide a better understanding of the sound directivity pattern of the sheng and can be applied as a reference in further objective and subjective experiments.