The Physics of Musical Instruments / Edition 2

by Neville H. Fletcher, Thomas D. Rossing

Overview

When we wrote the first edition of this book, we directed our presenta­ tion to the reader with a compelling interest in musical instruments who has "a reasonable grasp of physics and who is not frightened by a little mathematics." We are delighted to find how many such people there are. The opportunity afforded by the preparation of this second edition has allowed us to bring our discussion up to date by including those new insights that have arisen from the work of many dedicated researchers over the past decade. We have also taken the opportunity to revise our presentation of some aspects of the subject to make it more general and, we hope, more immediately accessible. We have, of course, corrected any errors that have come to our attention, and we express our thanks to those friends who pointed out such defects in the early printings of the first edition. We hope that this book will continue to serve as a guide, both to those undertaking research in the field and to those who simply have a deep interest in the subject. June 1991 N.H.F and T.D.R.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780387983745
Publisher:	Springer New York
Publication date:	06/19/1998
Edition description:	2nd ed. Corr. 5th printing 2005
Pages:	756
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.24(d)

Table of Contents

Part I: Vibrating Systems. Free and Forced Vibrations of Simple Systems. Continuous Systems in One Dimension: Strings and Bars. Two-Dimensional Systems: Membranes, Plates, and Shells. Coupled Vibrating Systems. Nonlinear Systems.- Part II: Sound Waves. Sound Waves in Air. Sound Radiation. Pipes, Horns, and Cavities.- Part III: String Instruments. Guitars and Lutes. Bowed String Instruments. Harps, Harpsicords, Clavicords, and Dulcimers. The Piano.- Part IV: Wind Instruments. Sound generation by Reed and Lip Vibrations. Lip-driven Brass Instruments. Woodwind Reed Instruments. Flutes and Flue Organ Pipes. Pipe Organs.- Part V: Percussion Instruments. Drums. Mallet Percussion Instruments. Cymbals, Gongs, Plates, and Steel Drums. Bells.- Part VI: Materials. Materials for Musical Instruments.- Name Index.- Subject Index.

Editorial Reviews

"Essentially everything you have ever wanted to know about the physics of musical instruments" PHYSICS TODAY

"a rigor, graphical detail, and verbal description." AUDIO

From the Publisher

Books of similar title are most commonly addressed to general readers, and presume only the command of mathematics/physics which might reasonably be expected of your typical fiddler. Lothar Cremer's The Physics of the violin (MIT, 1983) provides a beautiful example of the kind of writing which might result when a scientific author elects to "pull out all the stops" in treating the subtleties of such a theme. The present volume occupies the middle ground, and represents therefore a particularly useful contribution to the literature; one encounters here some partial differential equations, some formulae, but also a lot of clear writing and many good figures. The treatment is comprehensive and reasonably detailed. (NW) Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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