Spatial acoustic-radiation characteristic of a violin captured in the vicinity of a violinist

Abstract

The spatial characteristic of the sound of a violin is thought to affect the timbre of a violin in a reverberant space such as a concert hall. Therefore, the spatial characteristic is one of important key to clarify the timber of the violin. In this study, the spatial characteristic was investigated by placing 42 small microphones around a violinist and recording the sound of the violin being played. The experiment—targeting nine modern violins—was performed in an anechoic chamber. The professional violinists were asked to perform musical scales and compositions. According to the results of an analysis of the sound, in the horizontal plane, the sound is radiated roughly toward diagonally forward left of the violinist; in the sagittal plane, sounds with frequency components lower than around 1 kHz are radiated downwards, and sounds with frequency components higher than 1 kHz are radiated upwards. Moreover, it was observed that the directionality of the radiated sound of the violin is particularly strong around 1 kHz and 3 kHz, and somewhat strong near 350 Hz. It was also observed that during the performances of the compositions, the direction of the sound radiation at each analyzed frequency varies significantly with time.