Horns, Strings, and Harmony

Fascinating introductory text explores scientific, aesthetic aspects of musical sounds. Noted educator, physicist, and flutist covers simple and complex vibrating systems, ear's reception of sound, sound-making capacities of the piano, violin, trumpet, bugle, trombone, oboe, clarinet, flute, saxophone, many other instruments. Also, how to build a working trumpet, flute, and clarinet.

Arthur H. Benade developed his interest in the acoustics of musical instruments growing up in Lahore (British India, now Pakistan) where his father was an educator. His interest in acoustics continued to grow as he earned a PhD in Physics at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the faculty of Case Institute of Technology, now Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, as a nuclear physicist.

The turning point came when the Physical Science Study Committee commissioned him to write the influential concise text, Horns, Strings and Harmony, which Anchor Books launched as a mass market?sized paperback in 1960 and which Dover reprinted in 1992. Known to have inspired generations of teachers, this clear and thoughtful study has sold more than 150,000 copies in all editions and has been translated into several languages. In the decade following the appearance of Horns, Strings and Harmony, Benade completed his more extensive text, Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics, first published by Oxford University Press in 1976 and reprinted by Dover in 1996.

In addition to his two books, Benade wrote more than 100 technical papers, contributed to many symposia, and lectured on acoustics all over the world. His range was far-reaching. Titles of his scholarly papers include "Mathematical Theory of Woodwind Finger Holes," "Resonance-Absorption Cross Section of a Pipe Organ," and "Spherical-Wave Approximation in Horns: Measured and Calculated."

Arthur Benade died in 1988 at the age of 62, one of the twentieth century's seminal figures in the world of acoustical research.

CONTENIDO:

An Autobiographical Prelude

I. A Brief Look Around
II. Simple Vibrating Systems
III. More Complicated Vibrating Systems
IV. Something about Ears
V. Ears: Architects of Harmony
VI. Stringed Instruments
VII. Vibrations in Pipes and Horns
VIII. The "Brass" Instruments
IX. Woodwinds
X. Homemade Wind Instruments

For Further Readings
Index