Posted on January 6, 2010May 20, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Physics and Music by Neville H. Fletcher Review: Physics and Music by Neville H. Fletcher Reviewed by Thomas D. Rossing Originally published in American Lutherie #7, 1986 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 Physics and Music Neville H. Fletcher Heinemann Educational Books 70 Court St., Portsmouth, NH 03801 Out of print (1999) Neville Fletcher is one of the world’s foremost authorities on musical acoustics. In 1976, he wrote this delightful forty-eight-page book to supplement high school physics courses in Australia. For some time it was difficult to obtain, but now it available in the USA for $4.95 per copy. The book begins with a brief history of musical acoustics, followed by brief chapters on Hearing and Music; Vibrating Systems; Strings, Drums, and Bells: Overtones and Sounds; Air Cavities and Pipes; and Horns. Then it treats Stringed Instruments and Wind Instruments, and concludes with three chapters on Musical Sounds, Harmony, and Tuning and Temperament. If it appears that these interesting topics are treated with too much brevity, remember the audience for which it was written. You will be happy to know, however, that Professor Fletcher is collaborating (with Arnold Tubis and myself) in writing a much more comprehensive treatment of musical instruments (to be published by Springer Verlag). Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 6, 2010May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: The Science of Sound by Thomas D. Rossing Review: The Science of Sound by Thomas D. Rossing Reviewed by Paul Wyszkowski Originally published in American Lutherie #3, 1985 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 The Science of Sound Thomas D. Rossing 637 pages Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1982 $76.70 from amazon.com (1999) If you missed reading Tom Rossing’s articles on guitar acoustics in the GAL Quarterly, you may not know that he is a professor of physics at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. His field of specialization is, as you may have guessed, acoustics and particularly musical acoustics. In fact, he has taught musical acoustics for over twenty years. “This book,” says Tom in his preface, “is intended to be an introduction to acoustics written in nontechnical language, primarily for students without college level physics and mathematics.” He notes that the word “sound” refers to two distinct phenomena: (1) the sensation of sound, that is, the conscious experience of hearing, and (2) vibrations in a physical medium which can cause the sensation of sound. (Making this distinction he points out, answers once and for all the old riddle: If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?) Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 6, 2010May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Lutes, Viols and Temperaments by Mark Lindley Review: Lutes, Viols and Temperaments by Mark Lindley Reviewed by Edward L. Kottick Originally published in American Lutherie #2, 1985 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 Lutes, Viols and Temperaments Mark Lindley Cambridge University Press, 1984 Out of print (1999) This book represents a landmark of scholarship that cannot be ignored by those who deal with fretted string instruments, whether scholar, maker, or player. Mark Lindley, one of the world’s experts on this complex subject, summarizes everything that can at present be said about the ways in which theorists and performers viewed the problem of temperament on fretted string instruments between ca. 1520 and ca. 1740. He does a brilliant job of sorting out the writers. He explains how some of them misunderstood the mathematical principles involved in reckoning temperament, and he shows how many of them, in turn, have been misinterpreted by modern scholars. The information is laid out clearly. Quotations from original sources have the English translation in parallel columns: thus, if Lindley draws an inference from the primary material, you are free to disagree and draw your own. The mathematics of temperament are presented clearly and, in many cases, masterfully, as in his explication of the distinction between the ratio of 18:17 and 12th root of 2. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
