Guitar Strings Research Articles

Smartphone-based experiments exploring the physical laws of guitar string vibrations

Using smartphones to explore the physical laws of musical instruments is not only scientifically intriguing but also practically feasible. Here an experimental scheme based on a smartphone and mobile application (Phyphox) is devised to investigate the vibration law of guitar strings. By quantitatively measuring the length, diameter and vibration frequency of guitar strings, the experimental results convincingly demonstrate the validity of the vibration law of guitar strings. The research embodies the concept of ‘from life to physics, from physics to society’, and is beneficial for students to comprehend the physical laws of guitar string vibration as well as the principle behind guitar sounds. The smartphone-based physics experiments can be performed outside the classic physics laboratory, which expands the methods and space of teaching physics experiments, and relates reality to physics laws.

Evaluation of the acoustic performance of a novelty cathodic protection system against guitar steel strings corrosion

This work was conducted to establish the efficiency of an impressed current cathodic protection system for musical instruments’ steel strings in protecting them from corrosion caused by human sweat. To conduct this research, the harmonic content degradation of a guitar string subjected to different corrosion stages by artificial human sweat, with and without cathodic protection by an impressed current, was studied. String corrosion is characterised by not only the electrochemical technique of polarisation resistance, but also by weight loss by gravimetric measurements and FESEM microscopy. From the correlation between the acoustic and electrochemical results, it can be concluded that harmonic content degradation of guitar strings increases corrosion but is less significant in the strings protected by impressed current.

Pressure Pain Threshold on the Finger Digit Pads in Stringed Musicians

Background Musicians put a lot of practice time into becoming experts in their instruments. One instrument with the highest rate of playing-related injuries is the guitar. An area that needs more research to better understand and treat orthopaedicneuromuscular abnormalities and injuries in musicians is how musical training affects the body. Overuse injury caused by pressing the finger pad on stretched guitar strings can lead to changes in the anatomical and functional organization of the somatosensory system which may alter the pain threshold.Aim The objective of this study was to determine the pressure-pain threshold in guitar and non-guitar players using a dolorimeter and compare the pressure-pain threshold changes between guitar and non-guitar players.Methods This observational study was conducted in music schools. A total of 82 participants which including 41 guitarists and 41 non-guitarists were enrolled in the study. A dolorimeter was used to quantify the pressure-pain threshold after which data analysis was performed.Results The pressure-pain threshold was higher in the fretting hands of guitarists than in non-guitarists.Conclusions Guitarists need to train adequately and follow proper fretting techniques to reduce overuse injuries and repetitive micro-trauma to the fingers. This may lead to other sensory problems or conditions in guitarists and thus may affect their careers as musicians.

Kant and the king: Lying promises, conventional implicature, and hypocrisy

AbstractImmanuel Kant promised, ‘as Your Majesty's loyal subject’, to abstain from all public lectures about religion. All past commentators agree this phrase permitted Kant to return to the topic after the King died. But it is not part of the ‘at‐issue content’. Consequently, ‘as Your Majesty's loyal subject’ is no more an escape clause than the corresponding phrase in ‘I guarantee, as your devoted fan, that these guitar strings will not break’. Just as the guarantee stands regardless of whether the guarantor ceases to be your devoted fan, the compliance conditions of Kant's promise are not affected by Kant's ceasing to be the king's loyal subject. For good or ill, Kant made a lying promise to King Friedrich Wilhelm II in 1794.

Applicability of the Capstan Equation to Guitar Strings

The effects of friction were observed in electric guitar strings passing over an electric guitar saddle. The effects of changing the ratio of the diameter of the winding to the diameter of the core of the string, the angle through which the string is bent, and the length on either side of the saddle were measured. Relative tensions were deduced by plucking and measuring the frequencies of vibration of the two portions of string. Coefficients of friction consistent with the capstan equation were calculated and were found to be lower than 0.26 for wound strings (nickel plated steel windings on steel cores) and lower than 0.17 for unwound (tin plated steel) strings. The largest values of friction were associated with strings of narrower windings and wider cores and this may be due to the uneven nature of the contact between the string and saddle for wound strings or due the surface of the windings deforming more, encouraging fresh (and therefore higher friction) metal to metal contact. It is advised to apply lubrication under the saddle to string contact point after first bringing the string up to pitch rather than before in order to prevent this fresh metal to metal contact.

Ultra-stable strain/ humidity dual-functional flexible wearable sensor based on brush-like AgNPs@CNTs@TPU heterogeneous structure

Wearable flexible sensors have a broad applications prospect in human motion and health monitoring. However, designing and manufacturing ultra-stable sensors with wide operating ranges and extremely low detection limits remain a challenging task. In this paper, a heterogeneous-structured fibrous membrane was constructed using the electrospinning process and subsequent ultrasonic homogenizer treatment. The fibrous membrane is composed of brush-like thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) fibers, which are embedded with carbon nanotubes decorated with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs@CNTs). A dual-function sensor for strain and humidity based on the fiber membrane was designed. As a strain sensor, it has an ultra-low detection limit (0.05 %), an ultra-wide sensing range of 600 %, and excellent stability (100,000 cycles of stretch/release operation at 50 % strain). As a humidity sensor, it can achieve fast response as low as 1 s. With excellent sensing capabilities in terms of strain and humidity, the fiber membrane can be used to monitor breathing, pulse, and limb movement, as well as non-contact sensing, such as sensing the vibration of guitar strings or monitoring footsteps. The versatility and manufacturability of fiber membranes provide a new way for the application of wearable sensors in health monitoring and motion tracking.

A crystalline silicon string played with hours-long sustain

We have developed nanoscale guitar strings with extremely low energy dissipation, using silicon under stress. The exceptional lifetime of these mechanical oscillators makes them perfect tools to sense minuscule forces in their environment, and to explore how quantum mechanics can apply to macroscopic objects.

Inharmonicity in plucked guitar strings

We have considered the vibration of various types of pinned guitar strings and have investigated the deviation of the partials from integer multiples of the string's fundamental vibration frequency. We measured the inharmonicity parameter B and compared it to a direct calculation based on a model equation. We generally found very good agreement between the two determinations of B for monofilament strings, but perhaps not surprisingly, we find rather poor agreement for wound strings. Furthermore, we show that the methodology used to carry out this experiment can easily serve as the basis for an upper division physics laboratory on physical acoustics including a more thorough investigation of the classical wave equation in a real-world application.

The Acoustic Characteristics of Vocal Twang

The Acoustic Characteristics of Vocal Twang Ingo R. Titze (bio) VOICE RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY Vocalists are capable of imitating many of the sound qualities of musical instruments. As with impersonation of sounds other humans make, a caricature of the main feature of the instrumental sound is produced. Vocal timbre can be flute-like, brass-like, or percussive. Often the desired sound quality is that of the instruments that accompany the voice. Give the vastly different geometry and material properties of the human airway compared to those of musical instruments, only one or two acoustic features can usually be imitated. The word “twang” comes from the sound of a plucked guitar string. There is little in common between guitar strings transmitting sound to wooden plates and vocal folds transmitting sound through a 17 cm vocal tract, yet a common feature can be the clustering of frequencies produced. Woodhouse published frequency spectra of plucked guitar strings. Regardless of the pitch produced, the dominant harmonics clustered around 1500–2000 Hz. The fundamental frequency was never the dominant one.1 Such a frequency spectrum can be approximated by shaping the vocal tract such that both the epilaryngeal and the pharyngeal airway are narrow. The bottom row of Figure 1 shows this airway configuration in comparison to other shapes that produce different voice qualities, such as neutral, yawn, ring, and call. On the right panel, the input impedance to the vocal tract is shown for each configuration in the 100–2000 Hz region. The thin line is input resistance and the thick line is input reactance. High positive reactance means that harmonics are reinforced by the vocal tract. Note that twang has the highest reactance between 800 Hz and 1600 Hz. (The ring configuration has its highest reactance in the 3000–4000 Hz range, not shown in Figure 1). With a variety of tongue and lip configurations, the impedance peaks in the 1000–2000 Hz range can be moved up and down, as well as closer together or farther apart. Saldias et al. have shown midsagittal airway images that clearly show the narrowing in the epilaryngeal and pharyngeal regions in twang phonation. They have also shown that the corresponding spectrum has a broad peak in the 1000–2000 Hz region.2 A second feature of twang is nonsteadiness. The spectrum of a plucked string does not remain constant. It is transient as the sound dies out. A sharp twang drifts to a more mellow twang. A singer can imitate this transient quality by keeping the vowel or vocal fold adduction variable. Country singers often [End Page 613] make their vowels more speech-like, drifting from one vowel to another with co-articulation. This is in contrast to classical singers, who often maintain a steady voice quality, thereby mimicking steady tone instruments, such as flutes, brasses, and bowed strings. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. (left) Airway shapes and (right) corresponding vocal tract input impedance over a 100–2000 Hz frequency range. Thin lines are resistances and thick lines are reactances. This author has had multiple conversations with singing teachers about what constitutes “twang” in the industry. In an audition, singers may be asked to produce a twang sound, but it comes out more like a belt or a pressed voice. My advice would be to listen carefully to the sound of a plucked steel string. Imitate that sound first in isolation, then embed that quality into running speech, and finally “sang a sawng” with it. Ingo R. Titze NOTES 1. J. Woodhouse, “Plucked Guitar Transients: Comparison of Measurements and Synthesis,” Acta Acustica united with Acustica 90, no. 5 (September/October 2004): 945–965. 2. Marcelo Saldías, Anne-Maria Laukkanen, Marco Guzmán, Gonzalo, Maranda, Justin, Stoney, Paavo Alku, and Johan Sundberg, “The Vocal Tract in Loud Twang-Like Singing While Producing High and Low Pitches,” Journal of Voice 35, no. 5 (September 2021): 807.e1–807.e23. Copyright © 2022 National Association of Teachers of Singing, Inc

APLIKASI PERSAMAAN GELOMBANG UNTUK MENENTUKAN KARAKTERISTIK GELOMBANG SENAR GITAR YANG DIPETIK

Partial differential equations are often used to explain physical phenomena, one of which is the wave equation. One application of the wave equation is in plucked strings. This study describes the formation of a wave equation from guitar strings, determines the solution to the wave equation by using the variable separation method and certain boundary conditions and initial conditions, determines the amplitude of the wave, and simulates the movement of the wave based on the initial position of the plucked string. The result obtained is the wave equation of the guitar strings. When the string is plucked, the string will vibrate and produce a wave that can be formulated as a wave equation in the form of a homogeneous second order partial differential equation. The solution to this equation is in the form of a series. If given the initial conditions of plucking in the form of a function, then the amplitude of the wave is obtained. Simulations are given to see the movement of the amplitude and wave on the strings through three cases of the initial position of plucking the strings, namely: less than half, half, and more than half the length of the strings. The behavior of these amplitudes and waves is a characteristic or characteristic of the waves produced from a plucked guitar string

In the Quiet

In the Quiet Jona Fine (bio) June 6th 2020 Protect ripening strawberries from birds. –Farmer's Almanac 2020 S sits in their usual morning spot sunning themselves by the glass balcony doors in the kitchen. They were holding another book, its spine a soft denim blue. J could just make out the top of S's chest peeking out from behind the pages. The smooth skin, the empty landscape with the exception of two fading scars. When it came down to it, S had wanted everything gone, even their nipples. J knows the flatness has a messy history, was a long time coming, but ever since S's top surgery, S never wants to wear shirts anymore. S spends the weekend lounging around bare-chested. Parading themselves around the small one-bedroom apartment. Doing yoga on the patio that overlooks the street where people walk by with their big mountain dogs. J wants to be happy for them. J still rubs vitamin E oil on S's scars. When they were both stretched out in bed on a Sunday morning, J would caress each crescent, running their fingers along the raised and tender skin. But maybe they just wanted to know what it would feel like. In the quiet, like in the shower, or when they struggled to pull their own binder off, J almost felt safe enough to be jealous. Those moments when they wanted to dig their own breasts out. J puts down the two bowls of oatmeal on the table and S gets up to join them for breakfast. One with raisins and brown sugar because that is how S likes it, the other with sunflower seeds and maple syrup. "Do you always have to sit there bare-chested?" J wants to say, but they know it has taken S a long time to get to this place. They know S's parents aren't supportive. They didn't even come to Foothills Hospital which was just two miles up 55th Street from where they live in a two-story house with a finished basement below where S's childhood bedroom is, the walls still painted prison pink. A border of lavender flowers runs along the edges of the room. Then they didn't come by after to check in on their only child, let alone drop off a card or a casserole. J had been the one to empty S's drains and tuck them in at night surrounded by a fortress of pillows. So instead of asking J just stirs their oatmeal lazily with a spoon. Taking their first bite, they notice the way the porridge has already started to congeal. "What are you reading?" J asks. "Another book of poetry?" [End Page 28] S laughs. "What's wrong with poetry?" They put the book down and pick up their spoon. They have been reading Night Sky with Exit Wounds for weeks. The slender spine crinkled and cracked. One slow page at a time. S says they are savoring the rawness of it all. They never want a book to end. "It's just don't you want to read a novel, like find something you can really invest in, get lost in?" J says. "Poetry never has a sense of place." "But I am getting lost," S says. "I don't know—lost in the details." S traces their scars back and forth with all the fingers in their right hand, even their pinky and then their thumb, while using the other to scoop bites of oatmeal from their bowl to their mouth. It reminds J of someone strumming guitar strings. S talks with their mouth full. "I am invested," they say. "It's like I can taste the words? Is that weird?" S laughs again between chews of oatmeal. They both finish their bowls in silence. After breakfast, S stretches out across the four kitchen table chairs and J moves to the couch so they can wrap themselves in blankets. All the blankets in the world wouldn't feel heavy enough today. ________ Hours later, J wakes up on the couch. The afternoon sun streams through the window and they are sweating...

Technological Remedy for Music Practical Lessons Amidst Covid-19 Restrictions in the Department of Music Education, University of Education Winneba

The Department of Music Education, University of Education Winneba (UEW), trains students to acquire the skill of playing some Western instruments such as the keyboard, guitar, winds and orchestral strings. Furthermore, students also receive training in playing Ghanaian traditional instruments such as the atenteben and the various traditional drums of the existing ensembles. This practical teaching also include singing, dancing and ensemble making to allow all students perform their instruments in an ensemble. Unexpectedly, training in these instruments and ensembles was despaired by measures to contain the spread of Covid-19 pandemic. While theory courses in music were conducted via platforms such as Moodle, Google Classroom, the University’s Virtual Class (VClass) and Zoom, the exploratory case study design was used to seek technological means to conduct practical lessons which almost came to a halt as a result of its face-to-face teaching nature. Reviewing literature on technologies for teaching and Covid-19, the study which was based on Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (T-PACK) model unearthed means to conduct practical lessons. Lecturers, instructors, technicians and students of the Department were interviewed to organize their opinions on how to conduct practical lessons amidst Covid-19 restrictions. The study divulged innovative technological means to situate software programmes and applications such as Zoom, Google Classroom, Moodle, Microsoft Meet, Team Viewer, WhatsApp and Facebook for practical lessons.

Multirhythmicity but no deterministic chaos in vibrating strings

• We the dynamics of freely vibrating guitar strings. • We use methods of nonlinear time series analysis. • We show how false results can be mistaken as proof of deterministic chaos. • We show how to avoid false claims of chaos in vibrating strings. • We note the applicability of our approach in classrooms and for other musical instruments. The determination of properties of nonlinear dynamics from recorded time series offers fascinating insights into everyday phenomena that can be explored in the lab as well as in physics classrooms. A noteworthy challenge thereby is the distinction between multirhythmic signals, i.e., time series with many but still a finite number of harmonic frequencies, and deterministically chaotic signals. Especially if the signals are relatively short and decaying in intensity, both can have very similar continuous Fourier transforms. We show that stringed instruments offer easily accessible waveforms that can be studied with methods of nonlinear time series analysis to demonstrate that even highly multirhythmic signals can be robustly distinguished from deterministic chaos. In particular, we study the transition from sounds to chords by means of recordings of picked guitar strings, showing how the increasing complexity of the waveforms is still in fact periodic although it might seem chaotic. The treatment is instructive in terms of identifying common pitfalls that are associated with declaring deterministic chaos in observed data, and since it relies on readily available resources, it seems particularly well suited for the classroom on nonlinear dynamics and time series analysis.

120 ARPEGGIO OP. 1 MAURO GIULIANI: PENGARUHNYA TERHADAP KUALITAS PETIKAN GITAR KLASIK

Abstract120 Arpeggio Op. 1 developed by Mauro Giuliani is a technique exercises specifically targeting the improvement of the ability of the right finger for classical guitarists. Various variations or complete right finger exercise formulas are summarized in 120 Arpeggio Op. 1 Mauro Giuliani. This research was conducted with the aim to find out about any aspect of the right hand that had improved after practicing using the 120 Arpeggio Op. 1 technique exercises method of Mauro Giuliani. The results of this research showed that there were several things that technically the right hand had improved after doing the exercises with the M. Giulian method, including: (1) Speed of the plucking, (2) Finger synchronization when plucking the string, (3) Accuracy of the finger when plucking the guitar strings and (4) Articulation. The method used in this study is a qualitative method by prioritizing explanations which are then forwarded analytically to the research object.

The Function of Pantun in the Art Performace of Batang Hari Sembilan Solo Guitar during Sedekah Bumi Ceremony Held in Batu Urip Hamlet, South Sumatera

This study aims to describe the form and function of the solo guitar performance of Batang Hari Sembilan in Batu Urip hamlet, Batu Urip Taba village, Lubuklinggau city, South Sumatra. This study used a qualitative de-scriptive approach. Data collection techniques using observation, interviews, and documentation. The collected data were then analyzed using analytical and interactive techniques with data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion drawing. Based on the discussion that has been done, this study found that the Single Batang Hari Sembilan Guitar is a rhythm of guitar strings containing rhymes. Pantun is an identity and plays a very important role in the life of the community. The function of the pantun in the solo guitar performance of Batang Hari Sembilan was originally used as a communication function. Currently, this art performance has developed, namely as a ritual function, a function of preserving culture, a function of entertainment, a function of cultural continuity, a function of means of communication, and a function of emotional expression.

Stay in tune with a sonic miracle [Sound - Guitar Strings

WITH 2.5 MILLION UNITS sold annually in the US, and the UK pitching in with an extra 750,000, guitars are a billion-dollar business. Which means that the strings that go on them are big business too. If every new American and British six-string had their strings changed at the recommended frequency of once per month, they would in their first year alone consume sufficient length of metal wire to reach the 384,400km it takes to get to the Moon.

On inharmonicity in bass guitar strings with application to tapered and lumped constructions

In this study, the inharmonicity of bass guitar strings with and without areas of lowered and raised mass near the saddle is studied. Using a very high sample rate of over 900 kHz enabled finite difference time domain simulation to be applied for strings that simultaneously have nonzero stiffness and linear density which varies along the length of the string. Results are compared to experiments on specially constructed strings. Perturbation theory is demonstrated to be sufficiently accurate (and much more computationally efficient) for practical design purposes in reducing inharmonicity. The subject of inharmonicity is well known in pianos but has not been studied extensively in bass guitar strings. Here, the inharmonicity is found to be low in the lowest (open string) pitch on the five string bass guitar ({B}_0) given typical standard construction. Conversely, the inharmonicity is high (around 100 cents at the 10th partial) when that string is sounded when stopped at the 12th fret and very high (around 100 cents at the 6th partial) when that string is stopped at the 21st fret. Bass guitar strings were constructed with three different constructions (standard, tapered and lumped) in order to demonstrate how incorporating a lump of raised mass near the saddle can achieve close to zero inharmonicity for the lower frequency partials. This also has potential in terms of improving the use of higher fret numbers for musical harmony (reducing beating) and also in controlling pitch glide that has, with some exceptions, often been attributed solely to nonlinear behaviour.

Extracting Vibration Characteristics and Performing Sound Synthesis of Acoustic Guitar to Analyze Inharmonicity

The produced sound quality of guitar primarily depends on vibrational characteristics of the resonance box. Also, the tonal quality is influenced by the correct combination of tempo along with pitch, harmony, and melody in order to find music pleasurable. In this study, the resonance frequencies of the modelled resonance box have been analysed. The free-free modal analysis was performed in ABAQUS to obtain the modes shapes of the un-constrained sound box. To find music pleasing to the ear, the right pitch must be set, which is achieved by tuning the guitar strings. In order to analyse the sound elements, the Fourier analysis method was chosen and implemented in MATLAB. Identification of fundamentals and overtones of the individual string sounds were carried out prior and after tuning the string. The untuned strings showed irregular fundamental frequencies and higher partials of decay. Octaves and power spectrums have been presented and discussed in this paper.

Choke Point in Mini Expansion Device for the Development of Portable Vaccine Kit

Vapor compression refrigeration system is substantial to human comfort and needs that contributes to the progress mainly in agriculture, food preservation and in medical application. One of the applications that this study focused on is the study of the choke points in mini expansion device for the development of portable vaccine carrier kit. This study utilized a vapor compression refrigeration system, and aims to improve the system operation of a small-scale vapor compression refrigeration system by using spirally-arranged capillary tubes with five(5) different hydraulic diameters, namely; 0.20mm, 0.25mm, 0.30mm, 0.35mm and 0.40mm. A 1/8 horsepower vapor compression refrigeration system of a water dispenser is used as an experimental rig that supply the required refrigerant flow on the spirally- arranged expansion device. Guitar strings are used to reduce the hydraulic diameter of the commercially available capillary tubes. With the inserted guitar strings, the five(5) different hydraulic diameters in this study would be connected to the experimental rig. The data gathering method is developed by using a data logger and the fabricated spirally-arranged capillary tubes connected to the experimental rig. The determination of its lengths of choke point and the behavior of the pressure drop is measured during the different trials used for every hydraulic diameter of the spirally-arranged capillary tube. The mathematical equation that correlates the hydraulic diameters of the capillary tubes and their corresponding choke points is represented by the equation y = -1,836.0x2 + 2,319.0x-1 - 1.7860, where y is the distance of the capillary tube choke point and x is the hydraulic diameter of the fabricated spirally-arranged capillary tubes. This equation correlates the hydraulic diameter of a capillary tube to its corresponding choke point length with a value of R2 = 0.9947.

Finger-String Interaction Analysis in Guitar Playing With Optical Motion Capture

We present a method for the analysis of the finger-string interaction in guitar performances and the computation of fine actions during the plucking gesture. The method is based on Motion Capture using high-speed cameras that can track the position of reflective markers placed on the guitar and fingers, in combination with audio analysis. A major problem inherent in optical motion capture is that of marker occlusion and, in guitar playing, it is the right hand of the guitarist that is extremely difficult to capture, especially during the plucking process, where the track of the markers at the fingertips is lost very frequently. This work presents two models that allow the reconstruction of the position of occluded markers: a rigid-body model to track the motion of the guitar strings and a flexible-body model to track the motion of the hands. In combination with audio analysis (onset and pitch detection), the method can estimate a comprehensive set of sound control features that include the plucked string, the plucking finger and the characteristics of the plucking gesture in the phases of contact, pressure and release (e.g. position, timing, velocity, direction or string displacement).