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Journal of the Acoustical Society of America / Volume 131 / Issue 1 / PART 2 SPECIAL ISSUE ON MUSICAL ACOUSTICS

Acoustical properties of wood in string instruments soundboards and tuned idiophones: Biological and cultural diversity a

a Preliminary portions of this work were presented at a meeting of COST Action IE0601, Wood Science for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage, in Braga, Portugal, November 2008.

J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Volume 131, Issue 1, pp. 807-818 (2012); (12 pages)

Iris Brémaud

Laboratoire de Mécanique et Génie Civil (LMGC), CNRS, Université Montpellier 2, Place Eugène Bataillon, cc 048, 34095 Montpellier Cedex 5, France

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The acoustical properties of wood for instruments have mostly been studied on a few archetypal woods in Western musical instruments. The objective of this paper is to extend knowledge on the diversity in wood properties and uses in instruments from different geo-cultural areas. A wide set of data has been collected on vibrational properties of 452 species, through experiments and literature survey. Property distributions within broad categories confirm the known characteristics of softwoods, but also evidence specificities of tropical hardwoods compared to temperate-zone species. A relational database has been created to link wood properties and uses in musical instruments of the world. Two case studies on acoustically important functions in different geo-cultural areas show contrasted trends: (i) species used for xylophone bars and slit-drums in different continents all share a very low internal friction, (ii) on the contrary, the only characteristic common to soundboards’ woods is a lower than average density, whereas their acoustical properties differ widely between them and with the “Western” standard in wood choice. All these materials being nevertheless adapted to their context, cultural specificities in the structure, playing mode and “sonority” preferences should also be taken into account.

© 2012 Acoustical Society of America

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author thanks Y. ElKaïm (LMGC, Montpellier) and P. Cabrolier for helping in vibrational tests; P. Détienne, C. Daigremont, and S. Lotte (CIRAD, Montpellier) and all instrument makers for providing or identifying wood material; J. Gril, B. Thibaut and C. Cooksey for critical reading and correcting the manuscript; K. Motegi, H. Komoda, K. Minato, S. Yoshikawa, K. Pourtahmasi, B. Traoré, and A. Quintanar Isaias for past fruitful discussions on extra-European instruments. This work has been supported by CNRS and CIRAD in France, and by JSPS in Japan.

Article Outline

  1. INTRODUCTION
  2. CHARACTERIZATION AND COMPILATION OF VIBRATIONAL PROPERTIES OF WOOD
    1. Experimental characterization
      1. Material
      2. Method
    2. Collection of literature data
  3. CONSTRUCTION OF A RELATIONAL DATABASE: “WOOD SPECIES AND PROPERTIES IN MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE WORLD”
    1. Information on instrument making woods in different cultures
    2. Botanical aspects
  4. BIODIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTION OF ACOUSTICAL - MECHANICAL PROPERTIES BETWEEN SPECIES
  5. WOODS USED FOR TUNED IDIOPHONES
    1. On the quality requirements of woods for xylophones bars
    2. Comparison of wood species and acoustical properties in tuned idiophones of different continents
  6. WOODS FOR SOUNDBOARDS OF STRING INSTRUMENTS
    1. On « resonance » spruce, the archetypal wood for soundboards of Western classical stringed instruments
    2. Comparison of other soundboard woods chosen in instruments from different geo-cultural areas
  7. CONCLUSIONS

RELATED DATABASES

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KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords

musical acoustics, musical instruments, vibrations, wood

PACS

  • 43.75.Kk

    Bells, gongs, cymbals, mallet percussion, and similar instruments

  • 43.75.Gh

    Plucked string instruments

  • 43.75.De

    Bowed stringed instruments

  • 43.35.Mr

    Acoustics of viscoelastic materials

ARTICLE DATA

History
Received 15 Dec 2010
Accepted 25 Mar 2011
Revised 24 Mar 2011
Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.3651233

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN

0001-4966 (print)  

Publisher

$abstract.society.value is a Member of CrossRef Acoustical Society of America

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