Construction Of Musical Instruments Research Articles

Pine wood extraction by fermentation to improve its acoustical efficiency

Wood is a main material in the construction of musical instruments and speaker boxes, especially in developed countries. This study investigated the changes in acoustic properties of pine wood during the processes of fermentation, water washing, and organic washing solvent. The results indicated that both methods of water washing and ethanol-acetone mixture washing of the samples improved the values of density, modulus of elasticity, elastic stiffness, acoustic coefficient, vibration damping, and acoustic conversion efficiency. The effect of ethanol-acetone mixture washing was greater than water washing the samples. Additionally, results revealed that pretreatment before ethanol-acetone mixture washing had the most effect on vibration damping and acoustic conversion efficiency values. In general, the values obtained from ethanol-acetone mixture washing resulted in more improvement in acoustic properties compared to water washing, but the results showed that the pretreatment before water washing had a greater effect on the values of density, modulus of elasticity, elastic stiffness, and acoustic coefficient.

Physical and Acoustical Properties of Wavy Grain Sycamore Maple (Acer pseudoplatanus L.) Used for Musical Instruments

The wood used in the construction of musical instruments is carefully selected, being the best quality wood from the point of view of the wood structure. However, depending on the anatomical characteristics of the wood, the resonance of wood is classified into quality classes. For example, sycamore maple wood with curly grains is appreciated by luthiers for its three-dimensional optical effect. This study highlights the statistical correlations between the physical and anatomical characteristics of sycamore maple wood and its acoustic and elastic properties, compared to the types of wood historically used in violins. The methods used were based on the determination of the acoustic properties with the ultrasound method, the color of the wood with the three coordinates in the CIELab system and the statistical processing of the data. The sycamore maple wood samples were divided into anatomical quality classes in accordance with the selection made by the luthiers. The results emphasized the multiple correlations between density, brightness, degree of red, width of annual rings, acoustic and elastic properties, depending on the quality classes. In conclusion, the work provides a valuable database regarding the physical–acoustic and elastic properties of sycamore maple wood.

Positively Monstrous!

Positively Monstrous!

Two centuries of French patents as documentation of musical instrument construction

The French Patent Office I.N.P.I. has preserved the originals of ca. 12<th>000 French patents filed between 1791 and present days that are concerned with music-related inventions. As an I.N.P.I. pilot project, these were identified, collected, and classified by the present author, and the actual database named ‘‘Musique & Brevets’’ is going to be expanded with English, American, and German material, bringing currently a knowledge base up to 1900. It is expected to be made available on an I.N.P.I. website. This is an unequaled initiative that covers all branches of musical instrument manufacture, mechanical musical instruments, early recording and reproducing of music, but also educational material and methods for printing music. There already exists a number of websites presenting inventions on musical instruments, but these are restricted to one particular instrument and its related patents. ‘‘Musique & Brevets’’ intends to be exhaustive and make links between patents filed in different countries at the same time. The paper will present the content of the database, the access to texts and drawings of the patents via specific links, and their importance for the study of history and construction of musical instruments.

Music in court festivals of state: festival books as sources for performance practices

Journal Article Music in court festivals of state: festival books as sources for performance practices Get access Edmund A. Bowles Edmund A. Bowles Has wrrtten extensrvely over many years on late medreval musical instruments and performance practrces, musical ensembles in court festrvals, the hrstory and use of kettledrums, and the impact of technology on the construction of musical instruments. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Early Music, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3, August 2000, Pages 421–444, https://doi.org/10.1093/earlyj/XXVIII.3.421 Published: 01 August 2000

Simple nondestructive quantitization of specially orthotropic materials

Many different plate structures can be classified as specially orthotropic, such as cross-ply composites, unidirectional composites and quarter-cut wood boards. A simple method of determining the four elastic constants of a completely free, specially orthotropic plate has been developed. An improved Rayleigh expression, utilizing beam functions, is used to represent the deflection shape of the plate. A dimensionless objective function is formed from the frequency equation. The material properties are determined by minimizing the objective function with respect to modal analysis and geometry data. The technique has been successfully used on aluminum, composite and wooden plates. The ease of the method lends itself to use in NDE of composite plates and qualification of wood used in the construction of musical instruments.

Andrzej Panufnik

Andrzej Panufnik was born in Warsaw on September 24, 1914. His father, Tomasz, was the most eminent Polish constructor of stringed instruments, and author of many scientific books concerning the construction of musical instruments. Some of his books are in the library of the British Museum. Tomasz influenced in many ways the early musical ideas of his son, and this influence has lived on in one way in Andrzej's mature musical output. His father at first designed his instruments on the old Italian model—‘Antica’ was his name for them. He also later designed a new type of violin which he called ‘Polonia’—the Polish instrument. Andrzej's mature music falls into three categories: ‘Antica’, music based on compositions by seventeenth-century Polish composers, ‘Polonia’, music based partly on original Polish folk tunes, and ‘Independent’, music which he calls unrelated, free, but which at times does reflect the other two in spirit, simply because he cannot alter his nature. The works in this latter class have no direct connection with either of the other two.

The Use of Music in the Study of a Problem of Acculturation*

increased considerably. The result has been a number of studies of the music of nonliterate people, but as yet little theoretical application for such studies has been shown. The present paper will attempt to indicate one way in which musical investigation can be used to support anthropological theory, with the hope that its broader ramifications will become apparent by implication. For purposes of discussion let us state a hypothesis in the field of acculturation studies as follows: When two human groups which are in sustained contact have a number of characteristics in common in a particular aspect of culture, exchange of ideas therein will be much more frequent than if the characteristics of those aspects differ markedly from one another. In order to test this hypothesis let us examine the musical acculturative situation which exists, first, between Western culture and the Flathead Indians of western Montana and, second, between Western culture and urban Africa south of the Sahara with special reference to the Belgian Congo. Among the Flathead Indians the evidences of acculturation with respect to music are by no means pronounced, and those changes which can be documented appear in areas of activity surrounding the music rather than in the actual music itself, that is, in such matters as the construction of musical instruments or the use of song texts as opposed to vocal quality or scale structure. Flathead musical instruments at present include the war drum, hand drum and end-blown flageolet, a reduction in number from that indicated in earlier sources. Turney-High, for example, speaks of the whistle of bird bones which was used in courting and, more specifically, in arranging trysts, as well as rattles made by stringing deer hoofs on thongs tied to sticks, which were used both by shamans in the Camas Dance and by laymen in less esoteric dancing (Turney-High 1937:39, 83). Teit further indicates the presence of the rasp which, however, he mentions only in passing and without description (Teit 1927-28:386). The whistle and rasp are nowhere found in use today while the modern sleighbell has been substituted for the original rattle; these bells * This paper was first presented at the meetings of the American Anthropological Association at Tucson, Arizona, Dec. 29, 1953. The author wishes to acknowledge with thanks the support of the Belgian American Educational Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and l'Institut pour la Recherche Scientifique en Afrique Centrale, which made research in the Belgian Congo possible, and the Music Foundation of Montana State University, which supported field work among the Flathead Indians.