Musical acoustics
Musical Acoustics is a science subject, which includes both individual areas of acoustics and musicology. The focus of the department is on all aspects of research relating to the musician, the musical instrument or music perception, in particular their interaction in the tone in which both the humanities, the natural or formal scientific methods are used.
Scientists have always been considered as the acoustic vibration theory and part of the field of physics. The research of outstanding individuals such as Hermann von Helmholtz and Arthur Benade collected at the end of the 20th century in an international "scientific community " with some research centers in Germany. There is in principle an interdisciplinary approach through the combination of musicological research objects with one or more of the subjects of physics, mathematics, electrical engineering, psychology, medicine.
Branches of musical acoustics
- Acoustics of wind instruments, the Ideo and Membranophones, the string instruments, the voice of the song and electronic instruments
- Psychoacoustics
- Room acoustics
- Instrument tuition
- Music psychology and music processing
- Performance analysis, training and sensorimotor functions of music-making
- Physical Acoustics: measurement, electro-acoustics, signal processing, mechanics, materials research
- Physiological Acoustics in areas of anatomy, neurology, Chronobiology and brain research
- Musical phenomena (eg Viennese Sound Style, phonetics )
Research and teaching
The Musical Acoustics is represented at many universities and colleges as an expert in the fields of study musicology, and physics. Since 2003, it is set up as a scientific subject of a doctoral program at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Research also takes place at a number of musical instrument museums and Instrumentenbauschulen.
Since 1988, the Technical Committee shall comprise of Musical Acoustics in the German Acoustical Society eV ( DEGA )
Methods
An interdisciplinary subject, the Musical Acoustics of a wide range of different methods, for example, uses Sound analysis, sound synthesis, listening tests, measurements of acceleration, motion capturing, finite element method simulations, Physical Modeling, Laserinterfereometry and psychophysiological measurements ( electromyography, heart rate variability, skin resistance measurements and other techniques of biofeedback )
History
As a first systematic study of the acoustics have identified the introduction of sound systems and moods in music in the 3rd millennium BC in China. From ancient times, the scientific study of acoustics, among others, of Pythagoras of Samos (ca. 570-510 BC) narrated the mathematically analyzed the relationship between string length and pitch of the monochord.
Chrysippus of Soli ( 281-208 BC) recognized the wave nature of sound through a comparison with waves on the water surface. Leonardo da Vinci recognized, among other things, that air is required as a medium for the propagation of sound and that sound propagates at a finite speed. From Marin Mersenne (1588-1648) comes in addition to other scientific knowledge for the nature of sound, the first indication of an experimentally determined speed of sound. Galileo described the importance for the acoustic relationship between pitch and frequency.
Joseph Sauveur introduced the term " acoustic " for the study of sound. Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni is considered the founder of modern experimental acoustics; he invented the Chladni figures, make the natural vibrations of plates visible. Georg Simon Ohm postulated the ability of the auditory system to resolve sounds in fundamental tones and harmonics, Hermann von Helmholtz explored the sensation of sound and described the Helmholtz resonator and John William Strutt published the " Theory of Sound " with numerous mathematically substantiated findings that sound to its emergence and spread concern.
In the second half of the 19th century first acoustic measuring and recording devices have been developed, the Phonautograph by Édouard -Léon Scott de Martinville and later the phonograph by Thomas Alva Edison ( 1847-1931 ). August Kundt developed the Kundt's tube and put it for the measurement of sound absorption coefficient. Heinrich Barkhausen invented the first device to measure the volume. Since about 1930 scientific journals, devote themselves exclusively subjects of acoustics appear.
Musical Acoustics was defined by Guido Adler in 1885 as one of the auxiliary sciences of musicology and has since been regarded as a department of systematic musicology.