Learning Outcomes
The course aims at: presenting the basic principles of sound production for the main categories of instruments and stimulating participants to explore their personal skills at playing or composing music, setting the basis for further engagement with relevant areas of musical acoustics, processing and perception of musical sounds, etc.
Course Content (Syllabus)
The Acoustics of Musical Instruments is one of the most important subjects in music, both from a theoretical and a practical standpoint, with immediate impact and effects in all sub-branches, including composing, arranging, performing, recording and editing, etc.
The course concentrates in in-situ activities which include:
• Review of organology in relation to acoustics
• Acoustical and functional characteristics of musical instruments
• Acoustical measurements and demonstrations
• Presentation and study of instruments’ acoustics in conjunction to
playing techniques
• Study of perceptual characteristics of sounds of musical instruments
Covered topics include: review of basic principles of acoustics, vibrations and oscillators, principles of frequency-time analysis and relevant representations, acoustic characteristics of instrument families, descriptions of steady and transient response, resonators and resonances, sound sources such as strings, tubes and pipes, bars, sticks and membranes, wave propagation and emission/radiation, directivity, dynamics, etc.
The course examines the above within a framework of study for individual typical families of musical instruments such as the piano, strings of the violin family, the guitar, brass and woodwinds, percussion, voice-singing.