Course:PHYS341/2018/Calendar/Lecture 34

Phys341 Lecture 34: Summary and web references

2018.04.06

Drawing it all together

1. Erhu - http://acoustics.phas.ubc.ca/musical-instruments/strings/bowed/erhu/
2. Voice-Erhu-Violin
   • Erhu has three formant-like groups of modes:
     • Cavity modes 1-3-5 + membrane modes 01-02-03.
   • Violin has three formant-like groups of modes:
     • A0/C2/C3/C4 group, ~kHz group, “bridge hill”.
3. What is quality in a musical instrument?
   • Is it some parameter we can quantify?
     • Acoustic efficiency?
     • Power?
     • Uniformity of spectrum?
     • Directionality?
     • Response to player (play 32nd notes with ease)?
     • Dynamic range (uniform tone ppp to fff)?
   • Or is it just what players say it is?
4. Claudia Fritz’s double-blind tests of violins.
   • “Double-blind”, a technique borrowed from medical research, means neither the player nor the listener know what instrument is being played. Hard to arrange.
   • Selection of old Italian violins and new models by well-known and not-so-well-known luthiers.
   • Players wore welders goggles.
   • Instruments perfumed to prevent identification by smell.
   • Player and audience separated by a screen.
   • Audience of violinists, students, audiophiles etc.
5. The Indianapolis Experiment (old vs. new)
6. The McGill Experiment (price vs. quality)
7. And yet...
   • What criticism could you level at these double-blind tests?
   • Are all the great violinists and cellists who prize their Strads and Guaneris fooling themselves (and their audiences)?
   • James Ehnes plays the Fulton Collection’s “ex-Marsick” Stradivarius (1715), valued at $8M US.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGavVxYJbbA