ELI5- How does pushing air through an instrument make a note? And specifically for brass, why does buzzing work but not regular air flow?

Question

ELI5- How does pushing air through an instrument make a note? And specifically for brass, why does buzzing work but not regular air flow?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

The note is not made by pushing air through the instrument. The note is made by some vibration – vibration of the player’s lips in a trumpet or other brass instrument, vibration of a reed in a clarinet, saxophone or other woodwind instrument, or vibration of the air passing across the mouthpiece of a flute.

That vibration – really, a mixture of vibrations – then passes through the instrument, and right vibration is ‘chosen’ by being the one that properly ‘fits’ in the length of the instrument or distance/s between the mouthpiece and the open holes.