Twenty-Five Years of Musical Acoustics

Abstract

Two highlights of musical acoustics of the past twenty-five years are the advent of practical electrical musical instruments and research on deviations from the regular in music. Included in the latter are studies of the vibrato, transient modifications of tone quality, departures of intonation from rigid scales. The “steady-state” concepts of the past now need refurbishing in the light of “deviation” evidence. An analysis of papers directly related to music and published in the first twenty-five volumes of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America reveals a steadily increasing interest in musical acoustics until World War II. In common with other subjects the publication rate dropped sharply during the war. Publication in acoustics as a whole increased rapidly after the war, but interest in musical acoustics (at least as evidenced by papers in the Journal) did not revive. Patents on musical devices, however, now constitute a significantly larger percentage of the annual output of the U.S. Patent Office than was the case in 1941. Technology is outstripping research in musical acoustics; interest in research must be revived immediately for the benefit of those who will listen to music in the next twenty-five years.