Table Of ContentModern Acoustics and Signal Processing
Antoine Chaigne
Jean Kergomard
Acoustics
of Musical
Instruments
Foreword by
Murray Campbell
Modern Acoustics and Signal Processing
Editor-in-Chief
WilliamM.Hartmann,EastLansing,USA
EditorialBoard
YoichiAndo,Kobe,Japan
WhitlowW.L.Au,Kane’ohe,USA
ArthurB.Baggeroer,Cambridge,USA
NevilleH.Fletcher,Canberra,Australia
ChristopherR.Fuller,Blacksburg,USA
WilliamA.Kuperman,LaJolla,USA
JoanneL.Miller,Boston,USA
AlexandraI.Tolstoy,McLean,USA
Moreinformationaboutthisseriesathttp://www.springer.com/series/3754
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ofAmericaandSpringerdedicatedtoencouragingthepublicationofimportantnew
booksinacoustics.Publishedtitlesareintendedtoreflectthefullrangeofresearch
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EditorialBoard
JamesCottingham(Chair),CoeCollege
DianaDeutsch,UniversityofCalifornia,SanDiego
TimothyF.Duda,WoodsHoleOceanographicInstitution
RobinGlosemeyerPetrone,ThresholdAcoustics
MarkHamilton,UniversityofTexasatAustin
WilliamHartmann,MichiganStateUniversity
JamesF.Lynch,WoodsHoleOceanographicInstitution
PhilipMarston,WashingtonStateUniversity
ArthurPopper,UniversityofMaryland
MartinSiderius,PortlandStateUniversity
AndreaSimmons,BrownUniversity
NingXiang,RensselaerPolytechnicInstitute
WilliamYost,ArizonaStateUniversity
Antoine Chaigne • Jean Kergomard
Acoustics of Musical
Instruments
Foreword by Murray Campbell
123
AntoineChaigne JeanKergomard
InstituteofMusicAcoustics CNRSLaboratoiredeMécaniqueet
UniversityofMusicandPerformingArts d’Acoustique(LMA)
Vienna(MDW) Marseille,France
Vienna,Austria
Originaledition:Acoustiquedesinstrumentsdemusique,SecondEdition
©ÉditionsBelin-Paris,2013
ISSN2364-4915 ISSN2364-4923 (electronic)
ModernAcousticsandSignalProcessing
ISBN978-1-4939-3677-9 ISBN978-1-4939-3679-3 (eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-1-4939-3679-3
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016933347
©Springer-VerlagNewYork2016
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AcousticalSociety ofAmerica
The mission of the Acoustical Society of America (www.acousticalsociety.org)
is to increase and diffuse the knowledge of acoustics and promote its practical
applications.TheASAisrecognizedastheworld’spremierinternationalscientific
societyinacoustics,andcountsamongitsmorethan7,000members,professionals
inthefieldsofbioacoustics,engineering,architecture,speech,music,oceanography,
signalprocessing,soundandvibration,andnoisecontrol.
Sinceitsfirstmeetingin1929,TheAcousticalSocietyofAmericahasenjoyed
a healthy growth in membership and in stature. The present membership of
approximately7,500includesleadersinacousticsintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
andothercountries.TheSocietyhasattractedmembersfromvariousfieldsrelatedto
soundincludingengineering,physics,oceanography,lifesciences,noiseandnoise
control,architecturalacoustics;psychologicalandphysiologicalacoustics;applied
acoustics; music and musical instruments; speech communication; ultrasonics,
radiation, and scattering; mechanical vibrations and shock; underwater sound;
aeroacoustics; macrosonics; acoustical signal processing; bioacoustics; and many
moretopics.
To assure adequate attention to these separate fields and to new ones that
may develop, the Society establishes technical committees and technical groups
chargedwithkeepingabreastofdevelopmentsandneedsofthemembershipintheir
specializedfields.Thisdiversityandtheopportunityitprovidesforinterchangeof
knowledgeandpointsofviewhasbecomeoneofthestrengthsoftheSociety.
The Society’s publishing program has historically included the Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America, the magazine Acoustics Today, a newsletter, and
variousbooksauthoredbyitsmembersacrossthemanytopicalareasofacoustics.
Inaddition,ASAmembersareinvolvedinthedevelopmentofacousticalstandards
concernedwithterminology,measurementprocedures,andcriteriafordetermining
theeffectsofnoiseandvibration.
Series Preface forModernAcoustics and SignalProcessing
In the popular mind, the term “acoustics” refers to the properties of a room or
other environment—the acoustics of a room are good or the acoustics are bad.
But as understood in the professional acoustical societies of the world, such as
the highly influential Acoustical Society of America, the concept of acoustics is
much broader.Of course, it is concernedwith the acoustical propertiesof concert
halls, classrooms, offices, and factories—a topic generally known as architectural
acoustics,butitisalsoconcernedwithvibrationsandwavestoohighortoolowto
beaudible.Acousticiansemployultrasoundinprobingthepropertiesofmaterials,
or in medicine for imaging, diagnosis, therapy, and surgery. Acoustics includes
infrasound—the wind-driven motions of skyscrapers, the vibrations of the earth,
andthemacroscopicdynamicsofthesun.
Acoustics studies the interaction of waves with structures, from the detection
of submarines in the sea to the buffeting of spacecraft. The scope of acoustics
ranges from the electronic recording of rock and roll and the control of noise in
ourenvironmentstotheinhomogeneousdistributionofmatterinthecosmos.
Acoustics extends to the production and reception of speech and to the songs
of humans and animals. It is in music, from the generation of sounds by musical
instruments to the emotional response of listeners. Along this path, acoustics
encounters the complex processing in the auditory nervous system, its anatomy,
genetics,andphysiology—perceptionandbehavioroflivingthings.
Acousticsisapracticalscience,andmodernacousticsissotightlycoupledtodig-
italsignalprocessingthatthetwofieldshavebecomeinseparable.Signalprocessing
isnotonlyanindispensabletoolforsynthesisandanalysisbutitalsoinformsmany
of our most fundamental models about how acoustical communication systems
work.
Giventheimportanceofacousticstomodernscience,industry,andhumanwel-
fareSpringerpresentsthisseriesofscientificliterature,entitledModernAcoustics
andSignalProcessing.Thisseriesofmonographsandreferencebooksisintended
to coverall areas of today’s acousticsas an interdisciplinaryfield. We expectthat
scientists,engineers,andgraduatestudentswillfindthebooksinthisseriesuseful
intheirresearch,teaching,andstudies.
WilliamM.Hartmann
Foreword
Formorethan40,000years,humanbeingshavebeenmakingandplayingmusical
instruments. Although Greek philosophers of the Pythagorean school carried out
pioneering studies on stringed instruments, it is only in the last few centuries
that advances in physics and mathematics have made it possible to develop a
reasonably comprehensive scientific understanding of how musical instruments
function.Bythemid-twentiethcentury,thebasicprinciplesofclassicalmechanics,
fluiddynamicsandacousticshadbeensuccessfullyappliedtoexplainmanyaspects
of the behaviour of musical instruments. In recent decades, however, there has
been a remarkable acceleration in the scope and pace of research in musical
acoustics,leadingtofreshinsightsintomusicallyimportantfeaturesofinstrumental
behaviour which are not captured by simplified models. Experimental studies
have benefited from the ready availability of highly sophisticated instrumentation
devices, while the rapid growth in computational power has made numerical
modellingan increasinglyimportantresource.In parallelwith these technological
advances,there havebeentheoreticaldevelopmentswhichhaveclarified the often
complexphysicalprocesses whose interaction is responsible for the generationof
soundinmusicalinstruments.
Thetimeisthereforeripeforatextbookwhichprovidesasystematicpresentation
of the current state of our understanding of the physics of musical instruments.
Antoine Chaigne and Jean Kergomard are the ideal authors to present such an
overview, since each has an outstanding record of research leadership and publi-
cationinthisfield.Whereappropriatetheyhaveinvitedauthoritativecontributions
fromotherexperts,includingXavierBoutillon,Jean-PierreDalmont,BenoitFabre,
Joël Gilbert and Cyril Touzé. A notable feature of this book, which makes it
particularlyvaluableasatextbookforadvancedstudents,isitssystematicexposition
of the mathematical treatments, with full derivations of the crucial equations.
This provides an excellent pedagogical introduction to the research literature, for
whichextensivereferencesaregiven.Thebookisstructuredtofacilitateagradual
unfolding of different formalisms. Modal theory, for example, is introduced in
Chap.3 for the case of undamped normal modes; complex modes which include
vii
viii Foreword
dissipation are discussed in Chap.5; and the increasingly important theory of
nonlinear modes is presented in Chap.8. In each case the relevance to musical
examplesismadeclear.
Thisbookwillundoubtedlybecomethestandardreferencetextforpostgraduate
students and teachers of musical instrument acoustics. The mathematical level
required to engage fully with the theoretical derivations is that of an undergrad-
uate degree in physics, mathematics or engineering. Readers without a formal
scientific education will also gain many fascinating and important insights, since
the mathematical treatments are usually introduced and framed by non-technical
discussions and explanations. The authors display a deep understanding of the
musical significance of the scientific discussions and are able to convey this in a
languagewhichisreadilyaccessibletoperformersandmusicalinstrumentmakers.
There are many aspects of the sound production and playability of instruments
whicharemusicallyimportant,butwhichdependonsubtledetailsoftheunderlying
physics.The studyof such subtleties hasbeena hallmarkof muchrecentworkin
musicalinstrumentacoustics,andthistextbookleadsthereaderfrombasicphysical
principlestothecurrentresearchfrontierwithauniqueandadmirablecombination
ofscientificrigourandmusicalsensibility.
Edinburgh,UK MurrayCampbell
1February2016
Preface
Objectives oftheBook
This book is devoted to the acoustics of musical instruments. Its prime aim is to
highlightthephysicalprinciplesthatgoverntheproductionandradiationofsound
bythesecomplexsources.Itistheresultofseveralyearsofworkwhichwouldnot
havebeenpossiblewithouttheactiveandenthusiasticcontributionofcolleaguesto
whomwewishtoextendoursincerethanksandgratitude.Weshouldalsomention
that Chap.10 on the flute was written by Benoît Fabre and Chap.11 on the violin
byXavierBoutillon.Jean-PierreDalmont,JoëlGilbertandCyrilTouzéwrotesome
paragraphsinthethirdpart.
Thebookismeantprimarilyasatextbookforstudentsatmaster’sanddoctorate
levels. This is the reason why it includes a large number of significant equations
wherethemathematicalderivationsarepresentedindetail.Inaddition,wethought
that it was necessary to accountfor the most recentresults of research in musical
acoustics.Therefore,alargenumberofreferencescanbefoundattheendofeach
chapter.N.FletcherandT.Rossing’sfamousbookPhysicsofMusicalInstruments
(Springer)waspublishedin1991,andeversincethisfieldofresearchhasbenefitted
fromplentyofnewdiscoveries.Onecancite,forexample,theessentialcontribution
offluiddynamicsandaeroacousticsforthecomprehensionofwindinstruments,the
interestofnonlinearstructuralmodelsfordescribingthebehaviourofcymbalsand
gongs and, more generally, the application of the theory of dynamicalsystems to
everyclassofinstruments.
In fact, this book is intended not only for students but also to researchers,
engineers and other physicists with a strong interest in music. We also hope that
musicians, instrument makers and music lovers who wish to acquire some basic
knowledgeonthephysicsofmusicalinstrumentswillbeabletoreaditprofitably,
even if they cannot follow all mathematical aspects in detail. In this view, the
links between physical phenomena, instrument making and playing are explained
asclearlyaspossible.
ix
