Apr
14
April Café Scientifique with Chris Waltham
Posted by: jdewitt | April 14, 2014 | Leave a Comment
Dear Café Scientifiquers, our next café will happen on Tuesday April 29th, 7:30pm at The Railway Club. Our speaker for the evening will be Dr. Chris Waltham. The title of his talk is:
Musical Acoustics: What do soundboxes do and how do they work?
Nearly all string instruments have soundboxes to radiate the vibrational energy of the strings. These wooden boxes tend to be objects of beauty and of iconic shapes (think of a violin or guitar), but seldom is any thought given to how they work. A large part of the field of musical acoustics is the analysis of sound boxes, and although the question of “quality” remains elusive, much progress has been made. For example, pretty much every feature of a violin’s morphology can be understood in terms of vibroacoustics and ergonomics, rather than visual aesthetics (with the possible exception of the scroll, of course). Although Andrea Amati would not have used the language and methods of mechanical engineering, the form he perfected most definitely follows its function.
I like to talk about acoustics and violins. Also harps, guitars, guqins and guzhengs.