Musical Instruments - Construction/Design/Maintenance, Acoustics & Physics of Music
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Overview
Although the history of musical instruments is nearly as old as civilization itself, the science of acoustics is quite recent. By understanding the physical basis of how instruments are used to make music, one hopes ultimately to be able to give physical criteria to distinguish a fine instrument from a mediocre one. For many musical instruments it is only within the past few years that musical acoustics has achieved even a reasonable understanding of the basic mechanisms determining tone quality, and in some cases even major features of the sounding mechanism have only recently been unraveled. This book describes the results of such acoustical investigations - intellectual and practical exercises of great fascination. Addressed to readers with a reasonable grasp of physics who are not put off by a little mathematics, this book discusses most of the traditional instruments currently in use in Western music. This second edition has been thoroughly revised to take into account the insights arising from recent research, and to generalize or clarify the presentation in many places.This thoroughly comprehensive and highly respected reference organizes what is known of the hows and whys behind the production and tonality of musical tones produced by the complete gamut of Western musical instruments. Addressed to readers who are not put off by a little physics and mathematics, this revised study edition describes the results of recent and historical acoustical investigations. 486 illustrations. Approx.
Editorials
Booknews
Books of similar title are most commonly addressed to general readers, and presume only the command of mathematics/physics which might reasonably be expected of your typical fiddler. Lothar Cremer's The Physics of the violin (MIT, 1983) provides a beautiful example of the kind of writing which might result when a scientific author elects to "pull out all the stops" in treating the subtleties of such a theme. The present volume occupies the middle ground, and represents therefore a particularly useful contribution to the literature; one encounters here some partial differential equations, some formulae, but also a lot of clear writing and many good figures. The treatment is comprehensive and reasonably detailed. (NW) Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)Book Details
Published
November 15, 1991
Publisher
New York : Springer-Verlag, c1990.
Pages
620
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780387969473