A music synthesizer simulates the musical tones of bowed string and wind instruments. The synthesizer includes a noise generator which generates pulsed noise signals, as well as a resonant system or signal generator which generates deterministic or periodic signals. In one embodiment, the pulsed noise signals are combined with the periodic signals to generate an improved synthesized musical sound. In another embodiment, pulsed noise is added to an excitation signal for energizing a resonating system, which may or may not be dynamically coupled to the excitation generator, resulting in the generation of synthesized sound having appropriate noise characteristics for bowed string and wind instruments.