Bamboo in Asian musical instruments.

Abstract

The acoustical properties of bamboo, along with its widespread availability, have made it one of the most commonly used materials for the construction of musical instruments worldwide. Among its properties important for acoustics, bamboo has a relatively low density and elastic modulus and a significant difference between the elastic moduli parallel to and perpendicular to the bamboo fibers. An extensive general review of the acoustically relevant properties of bamboo has recently been published [U. G. K. Wegst, Annu. Rev. Mater. Res. 38, 323–349 (2008)]. This paper presents some recent results on measured physical properties of bamboo as used in Asian wind and percussion instruments. The mechanical properties of the bamboo reeds used in some free reed wind instruments have been studied. Since a wide variety of flutes and reed wind instruments employ bamboo pipes the elastic moduli of bamboo pipes, as well as the non‐uniformity of the pipe wall material are of current interest, in particular, as related to pipe wall vibrations. The consequences of the non‐uniformity in composition and elastic modulus of quasi‐cylindrical bamboo pipes are also relevant when these pipe sections are used in percussion instruments.