Do you often wonder what causes a reed to perform just as it does? Would you like to know much more about the mysteries of multiphonic sounds and other new woodwind techniques? And why is it so hard to produce certain high notes on all our instruments? These and myriad other musical matters are clearly and practically discussed in Arthur Benade's important contribution to the study of musical acoustics, Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics.

Most earlier texts on the subject have been extremely hard for non-scientists to fathom (translate non-scientists to equal: most musicians ). This has been caused by the vastly different terminology for the same phenomena used by scientists and musicians, and also there has been a requirement that the reader be schooled in advanced mathematics to comprehend the formulas and other computations used in acoustics books to describe ideas and events. With Dr. Benade's new text, we are suddenly "out in the light" on so many important musical ideas. Here are the author's preliminary comments dealing with the problem:

This book is addressed most directly (though not exclusively) to people having a reasonable playing knowledge of music who would like to learn something of the ways in which music as an art form intertwines with our understanding of vibrating objects, with the study of auditory perception, and with the craft of the instrument maker. . . If you will leaf quickly through the book you will notice that I have rigorously confined myself in the text to the simplest of arithmetic - addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; a number may occasionally be squared or carry a square root sign. Numerical illustrations of the various calculations are supplied in almost every case . . .

A four-part general structure is utilized throughout:

1. Use is made of a carefully chosen minimum of technical terms beyond those commonly used in music.
2. technical terminology is normally identical with that used in other branches of physics or engineering. Occasionally there will be small differences, these being identified and the reasons for them explained. Special attention is called to (terms not used elsewhere), and an explanation is given of why they are needed.
3. Fundamental ideas are introduced whenever possible in the setting of everyday experience (at least that of musicians), or else new concepts are developed by making use of ideas that have already been dealt with thoroughly in earlier parts of the book.
4. Great care has been taken to keep a clearly marked distinction between mechanical phenomena in an instrument or in the room (which are the special province of a physicist or engineer) and the human auditory response to these phenomena (which is the primary concern of a perception psychologist).

Chapters One through Six describe the basics of vibrational science. The next three chapters cover many aspects of string vibration behavior, Chapter nine explains percussion and sound-board phenomena. A large area is devoted to Sinusoidally Driven Oscillations, or how some vibrations excite others and why.

Room acoustics receives a very thorough study with very practical applications for the performing and recording musician. There is a full examination of: loudness of single and combined sounds, musical relationships of pitch, the various tuning systems, characteristics of melodic intervals and scales, and the special tuning properties of keyboard instruments.

All of the usual orchestral instruments are surveyed, with much new information given. Arthur Benade is a concert-going scientist who has made friends with many prominent artists over the years. These friendships have resulted in an interchange of information and ideas which have helped Benade learn more about the real world of performing musicians. Names familiar to IDRS members will be Wilma Zonn (oboist), Jurg Schaeftlein (oboe and Baroque oboe), George Jameson (partner of R.W. MacGibbon of Milwaukee, repairer and instrument maker), William Waterhouse, and this editor (bassoonists). Discussions and tape recordings gathered from these musicians and of course many others have helped Benade describe acoustical events in terms of players we know and have heard with our own ears (either in person or on recordings).

Other parts of Benade's book bring us up to date on many of the latest "new sounds" asked by contemporary composers -- how they are formed, acoustically; how they may be improved and more easily controlled, and perhaps how an even greater storehouse of "new sound" musical effects may be found within our present instruments.

By its clear manner, multiplicity of understandable examples, very complete coverage of nearly all aspects of sound as associated with music, and by the author's care in testing all parts of his text by applying it in classrooms at his own school (Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland) and at the School of Music at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Michigan) --we have with Arthur Benade's Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics, a gold mine of really useful material. Both science and music have been served equally satisfactorily, a rare accomplishment in a scientific text.

Without hesitation I sincerely recommend this book to every serious student and performer of music and to the libraries of music schools everywhere. Bravo, Arthur Benade!

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