The Transmission and Storage of Sound

Abstract

There are two major deficiencies of sound from the point of view of making a musical performance enjoyable to a large number of people: it fades fast in relation to both distance and time. We have seen that the sound intensity drops very fast as we recede from the location of the sound source, and that the energy of the sound wave is quickly converted into heat, thus erasing the record of the music that was performed. As a result of this, in former times the enjoyment of superb music and musical performances was limited to a tiny fraction of the population. The total number of people during the 19th century who heard anything written by Beethoven performed by professional musicians could not have been more than 0.1 percent of the number of people who lived in that century, considering that concerts were attended mainly by members the urban upper middle class, and that the same people tended to go to concerts over and over again. Such concerts were the only opportunity then to hear such music. The situation was even more restrictive in earlier centuries.