| Contents |
1. Preliminaries to a study of musical acoustics : Musical acoustics: the meeting place of music, vibration physics, auditory science and craftsmanship ; The organization of this book ; A brief operating manual -- 2. Impulsive sounds, alone and in sequence : Sequences of impulsive sounds ; A scale of reference pitches ; Repetition rates of rhythmic patterns ; Electronically controlled repetition rates ; Examples, experiments and questions -- 3. Simple relations of sounds and motions : Mechanical motion of sound source and eardrum ; The representation of motion ; Displaying motion: the strip chart recorder and the oscilloscope ; Oscilloscope display of a particular clang ; Examples, experiments and questions -- 4. Characteristic frequencies and the decay of composite sounds : A preliminary speculation on the pitch behavior of skillet clangs ; Repetitive properties of an impulsive motion ; Several simultaneous repetition rates ; Experimental search for vibrations having several repetition rates ; Patterns made by adding two different repeating motions ; Composite motions of a skillet ; The characteristic oscillations of a struck object ; The formal description of a decaying sound ; Examples, experiments and questions -- 5. Pitch: the simplest musical implication of characteristic oscillations : Perceived pitch of a composite sound: rectangle bars ; Small clock chimes ; Bells ; Frequency components of the sounds from a plucked or struck string: guitars and pianos ; Sounds having whole-number frequency ratios ; The pitch of chimes and bells: hints of pattern recognition ; Another pitch assignment phenomenon: the effect of suppressing upper or lower partials ; Pitch assignments and frequency patterns: summary and conclusions -- |
| Contents |
6. The modes of oscillation of simple and composite systems : Properties of simple oscillators ; A chain of linked oscillators: properties of a single link ; Transverse oscillations of two masses connected by springs ; More than two masses connected by springs ; Characteristic modes of oscillation: a summary -- 7. Introduction to vibration recipes: the plucked string : Combinations of modes: the two-mass chain ; Vibration recipe of a stringlike beaded chain ; The basic recipe of a plucked or struck string -- 8. Broad hammers and plectra, soft hammers and the stiffness of strings : The equivalence of broad plectra to sets of narrow ones ; The effect of hammer width on the recipe for a struck string ; The effect of impact duration on the recipe for a struck string ; The effect of string stiffness on the excitation of strings ; The upper limits of the vibration recipe: a summary -- 9. The vibrations of drumheads and soundboards : Unraveling the mode shapes of a glockenspiel bar ; Mode shapes of a rectangular plate having free edges ; The effect of various boundaries ; Adjustment of frequency relations by variations of thickness ; An example: the kettledrum -- 10. Sinusoidally driven oscillations : Excitation of a pendulum by a repetitive force ; Properties of the initial transient motion ; The influence of variable damping on the steady response ; A flute player's unplanned experiment ; Steady excitation of a system having two characteristic modes of vibration ; A summary of the properties of a sinusoidally driven system ; The transfer response of a tin tray ; Some musical implications -- |
| Contents |
11. Room acoustics I: excitation of the modes and the transmission impulses : Sound pressure: a way of describing the characteristic oscillatory modes of room air ; Excitation of room modes by a simple source ; Detection of room modes by a microphone or by the ear: interchangeability of source and detector ; Measured steady-state response: some apparent problems ; Transient response of rooms to sinusoidal excitation ; Response to impulse excitation I: signal delays and reverberation ; Response to impulsive excitation II: reflections and scattering -- 12. Room acoustics II: the listener and the room : Hearing sustained sounds in a room ; The role of early echoes: the precedence effect ; Localization by the ears of sound sources in a room ; Some examples of the interplay between room and ear -- 13. The loudness of single and combined sounds : Thresholds of hearing and pain for a 1000-hz sinusoid ; The decibel notation and its application to acoustical signals ; Hearing and pain thresholds at various frequencies ; Variations in the perceive loudness of a single-component sound: sones ; Loudness of combined single-component or narrow-band noise signals having identical or different pitches ; The combined loudness of two or more sinusoids: relationships advertised by beats ; A loudness experiment comparing two saxophone tones ; The sound level meter ; Examples, experiments and questions -- 14. The acoustical phenomena governing the musical relationships of pitch : Heterodyne components: their detection and frequency relationships ; Mechanical origins of the heterodyne components ; The musical tone: special properties of sounds having harmonic components ; Pitch matching: the unison and other special intervals -- 15. Successive tones: reverberations, melodic relationships and musical scales : Reverberation times and the audibility of decaying sounds in a room ; The effect of room reverberation and noise on musical pitch relationships ; Introduction to musical scales ; The function of equal temperament for adjustable-pitch instruments ; Basic scale relations in the music of India ; Other reasons for departures from the special intervals of a scale -- |
| Contents |
16. Keyboard temperaments and tuning properties of the organ, harpsichord and piano : "Just" scales: the conventional basis for keyboard tunings ; Tuning procedure for setting equal temperament ; A useful unequal temperament: Andreas Werkmeister ; Some musical implications: key mood and modulation ; Vibration physics of real strings ; Temperaments for stringed keyboard instruments ; Further musical implications and summary -- 17. Sound production in pianos : The soundboard as seen by the strings; the concept of wave impedence ; The proportions of a mid-scale piano string and the necessity for multiple stringing ; The effect of multiple stringing on the sound of the piano ; The action of piano hammers ; Scaling the strings of a piano ; The sound of a piano -- 18. The clavichord and the harpsichord : The clavichord ; The harpsichord -- 19. The voice as a musical instrument : The voice: a source of controllable sound ; The larynx: a self-sustaining oscillatory flow controller ; Sound transmission through the vocal cavities and into the room ; The male voice and the singer's formant ; Formant tuning and the soprano singing voice ; Intermediate voices and the various musical implications -- 20. The brass wind instruments : A model of the brass player's excitation mechanism: the water trumpet ; Multiple-mode cooperations: regimes of oscillation ; Acoustical measurements and playing experiments on simple air columns ; The influence of the mouthpiece on the heights of resonance peaks; some useful playing properties of a trumpet ; Musically useful shapes: the flaring and conical families of brasses ; The selection of valve slides to give a complete scale ; Further properties of the mouthpiece; adjustment techniques ; The internal and external sound spectra of a trumpet ; The problem of clean attack -- |
| Contents |
21. The woodwinds: I : Resonance curves and the characteristic shapes of woodwind vibrational modes: the tone-hole cutoff frequency ; The flow-control and elastic properties of reeds ; Woodwind regimes of oscillation; Worman's results ; Acoustical properties of a set of closed or open tone holes ; The higher registers of woodwinds; the function of register holes and cross-fingerings -- 22. The woodwinds: II : The reed cavity and neck proportions in conical instruments ; Reed cavity acoustics for cylindrical instruments ; Adjustment of natural frequencies by means of small changes of air-column shape ; The radiation of sound from a woodwind; some problems faced by recording engineers ; Characterization of a woodwind by its cutoff frequency ; The flute family of instruments ; The effect of wall material on the playing properties of wind instruments -- 23. The oscillations of a bowed string : The excitation mechanism of a bowed string ; The resonance curves and regimes of oscillation of a bowed string ; The effect of inharmonicity and damping on the setting-up of regimes ; A description of the bowing mechanism; Helmholtz and Raman ; The bridge driving force spectrum -- 24. Instruments of the violin family : The body and the bridge of instruments of the violin family ; High-frequency radiation properties of bowed string instruments ; Characteristic features of the violin, viola and cello; a recent development: the new family of large and small true violins ; The adjustment of violin plates and the required properties of their material ; Musical properties of bowed string instruments -- 25. Half-valved octaves, burrs, multiphones and wolf notes : The playing of half-valved octaves on brass instruments ; Brass-instrument burrs ; Reed woodwind multiphonics ; The wolf note on violin-family instruments. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| LCCN | 75025460 |
