258 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1953 



Professor Skudryzk of Vienna emphasizes the importance of the 

 radiation by a good violin of transients and of low frequencies in order 

 to make it stand out in solo work {vide supra). From this point 

 of view tests behind a screen are inadequate to represent the effects 

 of playing the instrument on the concert platform, particularly in 

 concerti. Both he and other physicists have tried to pinpoint the 

 effects of material and varnish. The general conclusions are what one 

 would expect : the wood should possess good elasticity and small in- 

 ternal friction. The purpose of the varnish is to reduce the latter 

 but since a varnish suffers a chemical change with age we cannot be 

 sure that the old violins are, in respect of internal friction, in the 

 same condition as when contemporary players used them. In any 

 case, varnishes have been so much developed by the chemists in recent 

 years that the modem violinmaker ought to be able to do better than 

 the old masters in this respect. 



In the acoustics of the pianoforte and other instruments having 

 struck strings, recent scientific interest, particularly in the hands of 

 Dr. George in England and Dr. Young in the United States, has been 

 directed to the coupling between the two or three strings of the same 

 pitch which constitute a note. 



A limited amount of mistuning among the members of this trichord 

 is not undesirable for it adds brightness. The maker aims, as with 

 the violin, to reduce the attenuation which inevitably occurs after the 

 string is struck. The timbre varies during the decay of the sound, the 

 components of low pitch lasting longest. The timbre varies also with 

 the speed of impact, that is with touch, and it is not possible to change 

 one without the other. 



Wind. — Whether the wind instrument is one of a distinct class, like 

 the orchestral wind, or occurs in ranks all of the same pattern as in 

 the organ, basically its sound is that of a column of air set in vibration 

 by an edge tone (whistle type) or reed. In the former a jet of air 

 debouching through a slit from a wind chest or from the human lung 

 strikes a sharp edge and is set in pendulation at a frequency eventually 

 governed by the column of air acting as resonator. In the brass we 

 have virtually both types of excitation, for the lips of the player act 

 like a double reed while an edge is furnished by the more or less sharp 

 constriction where the cup mouthpiece adjoins the tube itself. 



The column has either a fixed length so that its possible notes are 

 limited to the fundamental — in theory, though it is often unattain- 

 able — and its harmonics, or it is variable by the use of side holes. It is 

 now possible to calculate the pitch of such a system if one knows the 

 position and acoustic "admittance" — to borrow a term from the elec- 

 trician — of the side holes and of the termination or bell mouth. The 

 principal drawback to the practical use of such theoretical predictions 



