Silk purse? Brass-instrument research with limited resources

Abstract

Can we make a silk purse from the proverbial sow's ear? That is, can we do meaningful experiments with inexpensive equipment? It is certainly much easier than it used to be. The advent of digital audio and cheap computing power has revolutionized musical acoustics research. In this paper the author looks at several projects on brass instruments, most of which he funded out of his own pocket. Some yielded better results than others, but all pointed toward interesting work yet to be done.Can we make a silk purse from the proverbial sow's ear? That is, can we do meaningful experiments with inexpensive equipment? It is certainly much easier than it used to be. The advent of digital audio and cheap computing power has revolutionized musical acoustics research. In this paper the author looks at several projects on brass instruments, most of which he funded out of his own pocket. Some yielded better results than others, but all pointed toward interesting work yet to be done.