I Why is saxophone growling produced by modulation of the sound waves?

[sophiecentaur]

integer harmonics,

An interesting term and brought in here to maintain the illusion of correctness, maybe. It could make an interesting (?) topic for another post.

 

[NTL2009]

But I think that in most cases, these slight variations from are just accepted,

You seem to be implying that the 'slight variations' are not a good thing. I would say that they are what distinguishes a 'good' and a 'poor' instrument. ....

A point that seems to have been missed in this discussion ...

I'm not trying to make any statement at all (in this thread) about what is 'good' or 'bad' (though I do agree with you in the musical realm).

Maybe I'm misreading this whole thread, but I thought OP was just looking for the physics behind what produces a tone that is lower in frequency than either the clarinet tone or the singing tone? Good or bad aren't a part of that.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Good or bad aren't a part of that.

Of course not. My point was that the model in the attempted explanation is flawed if you assume harmonics and that you can easily detect audibly that departure by the difference between the sound of instruments and simple 'synthesised' sounds.

There should be serious caveats attached when inappropriate terms are used in an explanation. Approximations can be relevant and need to be justified properly - or at least mentioned.