The Physicist's Guide to the Orchestra

An experimental study of strings, woodwinds (organ pipe, flute, clarinet, saxophone and recorder), and the voice was undertaken to illustrate the basic principles of sound production in music instruments. The setup used is simple and consists of common laboratory equipment. Although the canonical examples (standing wave on a string, in an open and closed pipe) are easily reproduced, they fail to explain the majority of the measurements. The reasons for these deviations are outlined and discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures (jpg files). Submitted to European Journal of Physic

Materials Innovation in Acoustic Guitars: Challenging the Tonal Superiority of Wood

The authors explore perceived sound properties of acoustic guitars built with foamed polycarbonate soundboards rather than spruce or cedar. The research seeks to establish the extent to which polymer acoustic guitars are an acoustically credible alternative to wood instruments. Data are generated through participation by members of the public (n = 320) in blind listening tests. Remarkably, participants are found unable to distinguish much beyond a 50% success rate whether sound originates from wood or polymer acoustic guitars. The findings challenge deeply rooted ideas about traditional material-instrument relationships and champion the use of design as a driver for instrument innovation and artistic engagement

Emotion and music: The Ethiopian lyre bagana

The bagana is a paraliturgical lyre played by the Christian Amhara of Ethiopia. It is used to perform spiritual music. Bagana is an intimate instrument, accompanied by the singing voice only. It has a special role in Christian Amhara music, as its myth of origin closely connects it to God, the biblical King David and King Menelik I. It is reputed to be very powerful and its performances arouse intense reactions in both players and listeners. Some of these reactions were observed directly (immediate calming, tears, overwhelmed faces). Inner reactions to bagana were investigated by means of 108 statements collected from 32 participants (from virtuoso players to simple listeners) during interviews or discussion. Statements were classified by using the Strong Experiences related to Music (SEM) descriptive system (Gabrielsson & Lindström Wik, 2003). Results show that the inner reactions bagana elicits are varied (statements fall into six of the seven categories of the SEM descriptive system) but a majority of the statements can be classified into the Feelings/Emotions (5) and Existential and Transcendental (6) categories. The least commonly admitted reactions fall into the Physical Reactions and Behaviours (2) and the Perception (3) categories. These results are discussed in detail and confronted with the direct observations. The utility and difficulties of the SEM descriptive system in ethnomusicological contexts are also discussed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe