Characterizing the vibrational behavior of steelpans with a reduced number of notes

Abstract

The skilled artisans who construct lead (tenor) steelpans generally attempt to tune the first three resonances of each note harmonically. When successful, the tuning leads to neighboring notes sharing the same frequency for the first two harmonics of each note on the outer ring of the steelpan. The sympathetic excitation of the neighboring notes is believed to contribute significantly to the unique timbre of the steelpan's characteristic sound. A series of custom steelpans with fewer notes was commissioned to understand better the nature of the coupling between the struck note and sympathetically vibrating notes. Electronic speckle pattern interferometry was used to compare the coupling between notes on standard tenor steelpan with the coupling between notes on the customized steelpan having fewer notes.