Determining the resonance wood provenance of stringed instruments from the Cherubini Conservatory Collection in Florence, Italy

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauro Bernabei ◽  
Jarno Bontadi
Keyword(s):  
Stringed Instruments ◽  
Resonance Wood

Quantum Boxes, Stringed Instruments

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank S. Levin
Keyword(s):  
Energy Level ◽  
Schrödinger Equation ◽  
Quantum System ◽  
Schrodinger Equation ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Wave Functions ◽  
Energy Level Diagram ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Stringed Instruments ◽  
Symmetry Properties

Chapter 7 illustrates the results obtained by applying the Schrödinger equation to a simple pedagogical quantum system, the particle in a one-dimensional box. The wave functions are seen to be sine waves; their wavelengths are evaluated and used to calculate the quantized energies via the de Broglie relation. An energy-level diagram of some of the energies is constructed; on it are illustrations of the corresponding wave functions and probability distributions. The wave functions are seen to be either symmetric or antisymmetric about the midpoint of the line representing the box, thereby providing a lead-in to the later exploration of certain symmetry properties of multi-electron atoms. It is next pointed out that the Schrödinger equation for this system is identical to Newton’s equation describing the vibrations of a stretched musical string. The different meaning of the two solutions is discussed, as is the concept and structure of linear superpositions of them.

scholarly journals Possibilities of Decreasing Hygroscopicity of Resonance Wood Used in Piano Soundboards Using Thermal Treatment

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 475
Author(s):  
Petr Zatloukal ◽  
Pavlína Suchomelová ◽  
Jakub Dömény ◽  
Tadeáš Doskočil ◽  
Ginevra Manzo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Moisture Content ◽  
Conversion Efficiency ◽  
Dynamic Modulus ◽  
Moisture Sorption ◽  
Acoustical Properties ◽  
Longitudinal Dynamic ◽  
Moisture Content Level ◽  
Longitudinal Sound Velocity ◽  
Tan Δ ◽  
Resonance Wood

This article presents the possibilities of decreasing moisture sorption properties via thermal modification of Norway spruce wood in musical instruments. The 202 resonance wood specimens that were used to produce piano soundboards have been conditioned and divided into three density groups. The first specimen group had natural untreated properties, the second was thermally treated at 180 °C, and the third group was treated at 200 °C. All specimens were isothermally conditioned at 20 °C with relative humidity values of 40, 60, and 80%. The equilibrium moisture content (EMC), swelling, and acoustical properties, such as the longitudinal dynamic modulus (E’L), bending dynamic modulus (Eb), damping coefficient (tan δ), acoustic conversion efficiency (ACEL), and relative acoustic conversion efficiency (RACEL) were evaluated on every moisture content level. Treatment at 180 °C caused the EMC to decrease by 36% and the volume swelling to decrease by 9.9%. Treatment at 200 °C decreased the EMC by 42% and the swelling by 39.6%. The 180 °C treatment decreased the value of the longitudinal sound velocity by 1.6%, whereas the treatment at 200 °C increased the velocity by 2.1%. The acoustical properties EL′, Eb, ACEL, and RACEL were lower due to the higher moisture content of the samples, and only the tanδ increased. Although both treatments significantly affected the swelling and EMC, the treatment at 180 °C did not significantly affect the acoustical properties.

Intrinsic Muscle Strain in the Instrumentalist

2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 66-69
Author(s):  
William J Dawson
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Muscle Strain ◽  
Intrinsic Muscle ◽  
Forearm Muscles ◽  
Stringed Instruments ◽  
Hand Involvement ◽  
Intrinsic Muscles

The playing of many musical instruments is performed principally by the small intrinsic muscles of the hands. Practice records were reviewed to investigate the epidemiology, etiology, and risk factors for intrinsic muscle strain. Fifty-one instrumentalists were found, out of 129 having strains of all hand and forearm muscles. These 51 comprised 15.5% of all 329 musicians seen for overuse-related conditions. The patient ages ranged from 10 to 72 years; 20 were male. Forty-one of the 51 played keyboard or stringed instruments; 11 of the 19 stringed instruments were bowed. Twenty-one patients were professionals or university/conservatory music students. Sixty percent of strains were caused by playing music, with slightly more than half being in the professional/collegiate cohort. Pianists were more likely to experience right hand involvement. Seven patients had bilateral intrinsic strains. Thirteen experienced concomitant strains of the extrinsic forearm muscles, either on the same side or bilaterally with bilateral intrinsic strains. Treatment followed standard principles, with hand rest prescribed in 12, musical practice changes in 19, activity modification in 30, and formal exercises/hand therapy in 23. Nonsteroidal medication was prescribed in 17 cases. The data suggest that intrinsic muscle strains related to overuse follow the same etiologic and anatomic patterns as other upper extremity muscle strain and pain syndromes and have the same risk factors. Health care providers should be aware of the role of the hand intrinsic muscles in playing musical instruments and their propensity for overuse-related strain syndromes from both musical and nonmusical activities.

scholarly journals Melodic ornamentation from Muffat to Telemann

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Megan Ward
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Large Volume ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Musical Culture ◽  
French Music ◽  
Stringed Instruments ◽  
German States ◽  
And Performance

<p>Writers on 18th-century musical ornamentation have traditionally focused on the execution of notated ornaments, and on certain disputes arising from ambiguous and contradictory primary sources. Less attention has been given to the addition of ornaments where not prescribed by the composer. Such ornaments can be short, defined, patterns such as trills, turns, and mordents, or larger measured or unmeasured additions known as diminutions, divisions, or passaggi.  Additions of this nature are only in the rarest of cases compulsory. However, the practice of more or less spontaneous embellishment by the performer was so integral to pre-19th-century musical culture that this must have had a significant effect on composition.  The scope of this thesis is loosely defined by its titular composers, covering the period between Georg Muffat‟s later publications in the last years of the 17th century and G.P. Telemann‟s death in 1767. Both lived and worked in the German states, a region which had traditionally looked to Italian models of composition and performance. This period saw a flowering of German composition into its own unique and diverse genre which integrated aspects of various styles, most prominently Italian and French music.  This thesis centres on stringed instruments, but is directly relevant to woodwind players. Many aspects are also transferrable to the keyboard and to vocal music; however, these musicians will find a large volume of more targeted research elsewhere.</p>

Vibration and acoustic characteristics of domestically produced compressed cedar wood stringed instruments

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021.58 (0) ◽  
pp. C016
Author(s):  
Ryoma MORISAKI ◽  
Koki SHIGE ◽  
Reon NISHIKAWA ◽  
Osamu TERASHIMA ◽  
Takachika TSUJI ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Characteristics ◽  
Stringed Instruments

James Watt as Musical Organ Maker

2020 ◽  
pp. 209-229
Author(s):  
Nina Baker
Keyword(s):  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
Science Museum ◽  
Wind Instruments ◽  
Stringed Instruments ◽  
James Watt ◽  
Instrument Technology

This chapter examines Watt’s work in Glasgow between 1756-1744 when he struggled to make a living from mathematical instruments and also resorted to making and selling musical instruments. He made stringed instruments, including viole da gamba and guitars, plus flutes and organs. There are no complete stringed or wind instruments extant, although tools and parts are held in the London Science Museum. Watt also collaborated with Charles Clagget, an accomplished viol de gamba player and innovator in musical instrument technology, including the first trumpet valves. Watt’s accounts books make clear that he made or repaired barrel, chamber and finger organs and the chapter examines the evidence for these organs including the James Watt Organ in the Glasgow Museums’ Service collection. Its potential links to the great man are considered, to try to uncover the boundaries between myth and reality in regards to the provenance of this instrument.

A North African Folk Instrument

1928 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-34
Author(s):  
Henry George Farmer
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Slight Variation ◽  
North African ◽  
Professional Musician ◽  
The People ◽  
Stringed Instruments ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Town

Among the folk instruments of music in North Africa the primitive lute, guitar, or pandore known as the gunbrī or gunībrī stands facile princeps. Look where you will from Egypt to Morocco, from the Mediterranean to the southern confines of the Sūdān, and you will find this instrument in some form or other, although its name may have slight variation.2 It is essentially an instrument of the people, and is but rarely found in the hands of the professional musician of the town orchestra (ribā'a al-āla), who usually confines his attention to the more refined 'ūd (lute), kūītra (mandoline), or ṭtunbūr (pandore) among the stringed instruments whose strings are plucked. All and sundry among the people at large who are impelled to try their hand at music, take up the igunbrī or gurībrī——the noisy youth, the whining beggar, the strolling minstrel, the industrious workman, the respectable merchant, and the faqīr of the religious fraternity (zāwiya)——each thinking himself an adept as a performer.

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