Musical Acoustics
Inside Information on Instruments:
Musical Acousticians Launch New Web Site
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Media Release - School of Physics
The University of New South Wales
Wednesday 11th November 1998
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 How
do musical instruments work? Why do some notes, or combinations
of notes, play better or more easily than others? Many of the answers
are on a new web site Musical
Acoustics, produced by John
Smith, John Tann and Joe Wolfe of The School of Physics at The University
of New South Wales. "But by no means all", said Tann, "we still
have plenty of questions to answer".
The acoustical properties of a musical
instrument are different for every note, so a detailed acoustical
study produces hundreds of graphs. Where to publish such information,
without doing damage to forests? The web is the obvious place.
 The
site has pages to suit readers with a range of backgrounds. "Many
of the readers will be musicians, not scientists" says Wolfe, "so
we made a series of introductory pages for non-scientists".
The web has the further advantage that
one can add sound files to graphs and photographs. "This leads to
large data files", says Smith, "but the reader only needs to download
the particular material s/he needs." The researchers have worked
in collaboration with distinguished instrument makers and performers,
including members of The
Australia Ensemble, resident
at the University of New South Wales, and Lehner Flutes Australia
and The
Woodwind Group.
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Further Information
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