Posted on January 11, 2010May 27, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Acoustics of Wood by Voichita Buchur Review: Acoustics of Wood by Voichita Buchur reviewed by Nicholas Von Robison Originally published in American Lutherie #57, 1999 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Five, 2008 Acoustics of Wood Voichita Buchur CRC Press, 1995 ISBN 0849348013 Voichita Buchur’s book Acoustics of Wood is a synthesis of over fifty years of work by the scientific community into the physics of how this complex material responds to vibrational wave stimuli. With almost 800 references into the literature and about ten years from inception to its being published in 1995, it is a tremendous resource for the luthier’s understanding of his/her main material. I don’t get the feel from the text that the author is a maker herself, even though she is a member of the Catgut Acoustical Society. The book is heavily weighted towards violin family instruments, but this doesn’t make the book any less valuable to guitar makers. After a short, well written, general discussion on the anatomical structure of wood (macro, micro, and molecular), a brief outline is presented dividing the book into three major sections. Part One explores the physical phenomena associated with the effects of acoustic waves in forests (windbreaks to attenuate noise) and architectural acoustics (concert halls, office buildings, restaurants) with wood being used as a construction material and insulator in conjunction with other nonwood materials. A survey of six European concert halls and their geometrical, acoustical, and construction data is pretty interesting. 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 11, 2010May 28, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: Research Papers in Violin Acoustics 1975–1993 Review: Research Papers in Violin Acoustics, 1975-1993 edited by Carleen Hutchins and Virginia Benade Reviewed by David Hurd Originally published in American Lutherie #59, 1999 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Five, 2008 Research Papers in Violin Acoustics 1975–1993 Carleen Maley Hutchins, Editor Virginia Benade, Associate Editor Acoustical Society of America, ISBN 1563966093 It is with some trepidation that I pen this, my first book review for American Lutherie. As I noted to Tim Olsen, “But I’ve never made or even played a violin. How can I review such books and do them justice?” “Well,” he replied, “most of our readers are in the same position. And, having written the review, you can keep the books.” So began several months of fascinated reading of this two-volume set of violin research papers. A little over half of the papers in this collection are from the Journal of the Catgut Acoustical Society, Series 1 or 2 and the Society Newsletter. Both the Society and the journal are still alive, well, and active in mostly violin family instrument research. The remainder of the articles come from such technical journals as: Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Acustica, Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan, Journal of Audio Engineering, Journal of the Violin Society of America, Scientific American, Wood Science and Technology, Acoustics Australia, Acta Metallica, Music Perception, American Journal of Physics, Interdisciplinary Science Review, Strad, and Physics Today. Papers from the proceedings of several conferences on acoustics and modal analysis are also represented. 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 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 20, 2025 by Dale Phillips Review: SMAC83: Proceedings of the Stockholm Music Acoustics Conference edited by Askenfelt, Felicetti, Janson, and Sundberg Review: SMAC83: Proceedings of the Stockholm Music Acoustics Conference edited by Askenfelt, Felicetti, Janson, and Sundberg Reviewed By Thomas D. Rossing Originally published in American Lutherie #6, 1986 and Big Red Book of American Luthierie Volume One, 2000 SMAC83: Proceedings of the Stockholm Music Acoustics Conference Edited by Askenfelt, Felicetti, Janson, and Sundberg Two volumes Royal Swedish Academy of Music %Music Acoustics Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) S 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden In August 1983, the Music Acoustics Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music arranged the Stockholm Music Acoustics Conference (“SMAC 83”). The meeting focused on two related themes: acoustics of string instruments and acoustics of the singing voice. It was cosponsored by the Catgut Acoustical Society and the International Association for Experimental Research in Singing. The papers on acoustics of string instruments appear in Volume II (24 papers; 342 pages). The emphasis of the conference was on bowed string instruments, the subject of fifteen papers. Four papers were devoted to guitars and the remainder to pianos, harps, and other instruments including the tanpura of India. The contributors represented many different countries of the world. Ove Christensen (Denmark) describes an oscillator model for analysis of guitar sound pressure response. This paper, which also appears in Acustica 54, 289–95 (1984), deserves to be read by conscientious luthiers, since Christensen’s simple model is reasonably successful in relating the acoustical output of five classical guitars in the low- to mid-frequency range (100Hz–800Hz) to parameters characterizing the principal resonances of the guitars tested. 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.
