Search Results

(Graham)

(b Portland, OR, April 29, 1911; d Los Angeles, Oct 28, 1988). American acoustician. After studying at Reed College, Portland (BA 1932), he undertook postgraduate study at the University of California in Berkeley (MA 1936, PhD 1940). His early research work was in nuclear physics, working under the supervision of Ernest Lawrence in the Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley. In 1945 he was appointed professor of physics at the University of Southern California, and he continued in that post until his retirement in 1980. An accomplished performer on the piano and the bassoon, Backus was awarded the degree of MMus in conducting by the University of Southern California in 1959. In the later stages of his research career he made major contributions to the study of the acoustics of woodwind instruments, brass instruments and organ pipes. In 1969 the first edition of The Acoustical Foundations of Music...

(Henry)

(b Chicago, Jan 2, 1925; d Cleveland, Aug 4, 1987). American acoustician. His parents being missionaries, he spent much of his childhood in Lahore. After returning to the USA to study at Washington University, St Louis (AB 1948, PhD 1952), Benade was appointed in 1952 to the physics faculty at Case Institute of Technology, Cleveland, which later became Case Western Reserve University. Promoted to a full professorship in 1969, he continued in that post until shortly before his death. A skilled woodwind player, he had an exceptional ability to relate the results of acoustical research to the practical requirements of musicians and musical instrument makers. Benade established a research programme which made many fundamental contributions to the understanding of the operation of wind instruments. Also active in string instrument research, he was a founding member of the Catgut Acoustical Society and its president between 1969 and 1972...

(Pierre Maxime)

(b Paris, Nov 16, 1866; d Toulouse, Nov 15, 1953). French physicist and acoustician. He studied physics at the Sorbonne (1883) and at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (1885–8). After teaching at the Collège de France and the Lycée at Agen, in 1892 Bouasse joined the staff of the University of Toulouse and obtained his doctorate in mathematics. In 1897 he gained the degree of doctorate in physical sciences and was appointed to the physics chair at Toulouse, where he remained for the rest of his academic career. Retiring in 1937, he continued to work in his laboratory until two years before his death. His research interests ranged widely and he made many discoveries of great importance to musical acoustics. In particular, his studies of woodwind and brass instruments provided the essential foundation for the modern understanding of how sound is generated in these instruments. Bouasse's work has been unjustly neglected outside France, partly because he published little in conventional journals. Instead, he wove his own theories and experiments into a 45-volume library of textbooks on classical physics, the ...

(Michael)

(b London, August 26, 1933). English physicist and acoustician. He obtained a BSc in physics from Imperial College, London, later gaining the doctorate there with research into high-amplitude stress waves. After holding a research fellowship at the electronic music laboratory of the Canadian National Research Council in Ottawa, he worked for five years in the acoustics section of the UK National Physical Laboratory, where he carried out research on the psycho-acoustic perception of short duration and very low frequency sounds. In 1966 he was appointed to a lectureship in acoustics at the University of Surrey, where, in collaboration with colleagues in the US, Europe, Israel and Australia, he established a group which became noted for its research into the acoustics of wind instruments and their subjective assessment. He played a major part in the establishment there of the Tonmeister course in music and applied physics. An accomplished trombonist, his most notable research has been in the acoustics of brass instruments, where he supplemented and elucidated physical measurements by applying psychological testing procedures to the assessment of brass instrument tone quality. He developed a non-invasive technique which allows the bore of an instrument to be reconstructed by injecting acoustic pulses into one end and recording the reflections....

(Florenz Friedrich)

(b Wittenberg, Nov 30, 1756; d Breslau [now Wrocław], April 3, 1827). German acoustician. He studied law at Leipzig University before turning to scientific studies. He invented two instruments, the ‘euphon’ and the ‘klavizylinder’, both of which were variants of the glass harmonica. However, he owes his fame to his celebrated experiments on the nodal patterns and corresponding frequencies of vibration plates. He showed that the vibration patterns, often called Chladni figures, could be made visible by sprinkling sand on the plate. The sand is thrown up on vibrating areas and collects around nodal lines. Chladni travelled through Europe playing on his instruments and demonstrating his experiments before many persons and institutions; he encountered Goethe, Lichtenberg, Olbers, Laplace, Napoleon and other notable men of the period. Chladni's experiments stimulated much early work on the vibration of plates and bars and indeed so impressed the Académie des Sciences, Paris, that it offered a prize for a successful explanation of his sand figures and the motion of elastic surfaces in general. His work helped to form the foundation of modern theories, capable of predicting precise vibration patterns for violin and guitar top plates and the soundboards of keyboard instruments....

(b Cleveland, July 19, 1915). American physicist and acoustician. After studying physics at the Case School of Applied Science (BS 1937) he obtained the PhD from the University of Illinois. From 1941 to 1980 he held various research and management positions at the Westinghouse Corp. His research into the acoustics of the flute, carried out in a small laboratory at his home, has contributed significantly to what is known today about the behaviour of flutes and organ pipes. Several of his papers are recognised as standard reference material. His theory of feedback and how this relates to the means by which the flautist produces the desired frequencies and loudness is particularly relevant to performance. He also studied the significance of mouth resonance and the effect of mode stretching on harmonic generation. His work on the intonation of both antique and modern flutes and his critical assessment of Theobald Boehm's methods have helped in shaping current views on the historical development of the instrument....

(b Cleveland, OH, July 19, 1915; d Pittsburgh, PA, Feb 10, 2010). American scientist and acoustician. After studying physics at Case Institute of Technology (BS 1937), he carried out research in nuclear physics at the University of Illinois (PhD 1941). He then joined the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, remaining with the firm for the rest of his professional life; he retired in 1980 after a distinguished career culminating in six years as Director of Research and Development. In his youth he had become an accomplished flute player, and during his undergraduate studies at Case he encountered the notable acoustician Dayton C. Miller. This meeting led to a lifelong interest in the acoustics of the flute, and Coltman developed a laboratory at his home in which he conducted many important and illuminating experiments on flutes and flute playing. Particularly significant was his contribution to the understanding of the subtle interaction between the air jet blown across the flute embouchure hole by the player and the resonances of the air column within the flute pipe. Over four decades, starting in the mid-1960s, he published more than 40 papers on the acoustics of flutes and organ pipes. He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers....

(Winfried)

(b Munich, Aug 16, 1905; d Miesbach, Oct 16, 1990). German acoustician. He studied mechanical and electrical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin, gaining his doctorate in 1932 for a thesis on sound absorption by porous surfaces. Cremer subsequently engaged in acoustical research at the Technical University and the Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin. In 1945 he obtained a teaching post at the University of Munich, and in 1946 established an acoustical consultancy firm in Munich. He was appointed director of the Institut für Technische Akustik at the Technical University in 1954 and of the acoustics division of the Heinrich Hertz Institute in 1955. Retiring in 1973, he remained active in teaching and research until his death. Cremer made many important contributions to the solution of practical problems in noise control and building acoustics. He was acoustics consultant for a number of major halls including the Berlin Philharmonie, the Sydney Opera House and the Madrid Concert Hall. A skilled amateur pianist and violinist, in the 1930s he was an enthusiastic exponent of the trautonium, an early electronic instrument. Cremer later became interested in violin acoustics and was one of the leading figures in the Catgut Acoustical Society. His book ...

(b Provo, UT, Sept 11, 1884; d Provo, July 23, 1981). American acoustician. He studied at Brigham Young University in Provo (BS 1907), then at the University of Chicago, where he gained his doctorate in 1911 for research into the charge of the electron. In 1916 he joined the staff of Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York; he remained there for 33 years, becoming director of acoustical research in 1928 and of physical research in 1935. In 1949 Fletcher was appointed professor of electrical engineering at Columbia University, and in 1952 he returned to Brigham Young University as director of research. He became professor emeritus in 1974, and continued his research activity until his death. Fletcher was one of the great pioneers of the science of psychoacoustics, and his work on the human perception of sound was of fundamental importance. Responsible for the first public demonstration of stereophonic sound reproduction in ...

(Horner)

(b Armidale, NSW, July 14, 1930). Australian physicist and acoustician. He studied at Sydney University (BSc 1951) and Harvard (PhD 1956); after a period working in industry and with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Radiophysics Laboratory, he was appointed in 1963 to a chair in physics at the University of New England, NSW. In 1983 he became director of the CSIRO Institute of Physical Sciences and in 1988 visiting fellow at the Australian National University. He studied the flute with Victor McMahon in Sydney and James Pappoutsakis in Boston. Most notable in Fletcher’s extensively published research is his work with Suzanne Thwaites on sound generation in flutes and organ pipes, on flute performance techniques and on reed and lip-valve generators in woodwind and brass instruments. He also studied the vibration characteristics of gongs and cymbals, and with the composer Moya Henderson invented the alemba, a keyboard percussion instrument of tuned triangles. He is best known as co-author of the influential ...

(b Detroit, MI, June 20, 1917; d New York, NY, Jan 4, 2011). American acoustician. At UCLA he studied mathematics and physics (BA 1938, MA 1940), then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study acoustics under Philip McCord Morse (PhD 1945). In posts at Bell Telephone Laboratories (1945–51) and Columbia University (from 1952), where he taught in the engineering school as well as the graduate school of architecture and planning, he researched the acoustical properties of building materials, airborne sound, and musical instruments. He was acoustical consultant for more than 100 halls, including the Metropolitan Opera House (1966); Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis (renovation 1968); Great Hall, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, University of Illinois (1969); the concert hall and opera house at the John F. Kennedy Center (1971); Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis (...

(b Springfield, MA, May 24, 1911; d Wolfeboro, NH, Aug 7, 2009). American violinmaker, acoustician, and writer. A trumpeter and biology graduate of Cornell University (AB 1933) and New York University (MA 1942), she left both disciplines to embrace string instruments and acoustical physics. While teaching science and woodworking at the Brearley School, chamber music colleagues convinced her to take up viola. A woodcarver since childhood, Hutchins, at age 35, decided to make a viola. Hutchins then studied luthiery with Karl A. Berger (1949–59) and Stradivari expert Fernando Sacconi. While she and Harvard physicist Frederick A. Saunders performed more than 100 acoustical experiments (1949–63), Hutchins taught herself acoustical physics by making string instruments. In 1963 Hutchins and colleagues Robert Fryxell and John Schelleng founded the Catgut Acoustical Society. She published the CAS journal for more than 30 years, helping bridge the gap between violin makers and acoustical physicists. Hutchins made more than 500 instruments, authored more than 100 technical papers on violin acoustics, and edited ...

(b Dresden, June 18, 1909; d Bad Reichenhall, June 13, 1997). German acoustician. After attending the Technische Hochschule in Dresden (1928–9), he studied at the universities of Kiel, Tübingen and Berlin (where he was a pupil of Biehle). His work with M. Grützmacher and Gurlitt during this period stimulated his later research. In 1935 he received a doctorate in physics at the University of Berlin with a dissertation on reed pipes. From 1936 to 1945 he worked first in the State Institute of Physics and Technology in Berlin-Charlottenburg and later was independently employed in the physics department of Tübingen University. In 1952 he began work in the Federal Institute of Physics and Technology in Brunswick, becoming administrative adviser in 1953, chief adviser and head of the acoustics laboratory in 1956, and in 1968 professor and director of the institute. He retired in 1971.

Lottermoser conducted extensive research into the acoustics of instruments, especially the organ and violin, and into the physiology of hearing them. Through his articles on differing architectural styles in churches he contributed to the study and improvement of spatial acoustics....

(b Brunswick, March 16, 1933). German acoustician. In 1957 he enrolled in the Technical University of Brunswick as a student of electronics and music, becoming a research scientist in the acoustics laboratory at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Brunswick in 1958. In 1960 he was awarded the doctorate by the Technical University for a dissertation on the behaviour of organ flue pipes, supervised by Martin Grützmacher. Meyer was appointed head of the acoustics laboratory in 1971, and under his direction the laboratory established an international reputation in musical instrument acoustics, room acoustics and psychoacoustics. At the Musikhochschule in Detmold he became a lecturer (1968) and professor (1980); in 1985 he became head of the audio acoustics department at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Brunswick, retiring in 1996. A skilled violinist and conductor, his musical background has informed his research on the influence of acoustics on performance. Meyer has carried out definitive studies of the directional properties of instruments and the platform placing of orchestral groups. He has also given numerous public lectures involving acoustical demonstrations by live orchestras. President of the German Acoustical Society between ...

( b Strongsville, OH, March 13, 1866; d Cleveland, Feb 22, 1941). American acoustician . He studied at Princeton (DSc 1890) and held appointments there before becoming head of the physics department at the Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland. He was an accomplished flautist, and wrote extensively about the instrument, provided a catalogue of literature on the flute, and gathered an important collection of flutes (now in the Library of Congress, Washington, DC). His most important contribution as an acoustician was the development in 1909 of the ‘phonodeik’, which incorporated a diaphragm of thin glass closing the end of a receiving horn; this allowed him to analyse waveforms of various instruments – by means of a thin wire attached to the centre of the diaphragm, which passed over a spindle pulley, the rotation of the spindle (due to movement of the diaphragm) was recorded by light reflected from a mirror affixed to the spindle. He also carried out experiments on organ pipes and trumpets having walls of different thicknesses, although his conclusions about the desirable qualities for the containing walls of an instrument have been challenged by more recent studies. He became an expert on engineering acoustics and was responsible for the design of many concert halls. His 32-element harmonic synthesizer won him a medal from the Franklin Institute....

(Johannes )

(b Schiebroek, Netherlands, July 31, 1932). Dutch physicist and acoustician. At Delft University he obtained a degree in technical physics (1956) and took the PhD (1969). The major part of his professional career has been spent at TNO (Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research). He is an accomplished jazz clarinettist. His most important contribution has been to the fundamental acoustics of woodwind instruments. In aiming to find more rational design procedures, he has made a comprehensive theoretical analysis of the resonance of tubes, incorporating the effects of side holes, bends, mouthpieces and reeds. This allows detailed calculations to be made of the hole positions in a woodwind instrument and predictions to be made about aspects of tuning and tone quality. His findings are presented in Acoustical Aspects of Woodwind Instruments, which has become a standard text for designers of woodwind instruments.

(b Madison, SD, March 27, 1929). American physicist and acoustician. After studying at Luther College, Iowa (BA 1950), and Iowa State University (MS 1952, PhD 1954), he worked for the Sperry Rand Corporation. He was appointed professor of physics at St Olaf College, Minnesota, in 1957, then at Northern Illinois University in 1971. He has contributed greatly to the understanding of percussion instruments. Particularly noteworthy was his experimental demonstration of Chladni figures showing the vibrational modes of a kettledrum head (1982) and his work on bells (1984). His research with Johan Sundberg and colleagues in Stockholm revealed important features of the formant characteristics of the voice in solo and choral singing. He is best known as co-author of the influential The Physics of Musical Instruments (1991).

(b Richwood, OH, June 13, 1868; d Cambridge, MA, Jan 10, 1919). American acoustician. He studied at Ohio State University and Harvard, where he taught physics from 1890; between 1895 and 1919 he laid the foundations of architectural acoustics on the basic principles of engineering design. C.W. Eliot, president of Harvard, prevailed on Sabine to try to correct the serious problem of reverberation in the lecture hall of the Fogg Art Museum, his first acoustical project. At Eliot’s urging he also served as consultant for the Boston Music Hall: his outstanding success there illustrated the effects that could be achieved when acoustical engineering design preceded construction. Sabine’s discovery of the relation among reverberation time, absorbent capacity and the volume of an auditorium was a fundamental and new contribution; he earned a lasting reputation for the scope and perception of his work. It is indeed appropriate that the unit of sound-absorbing power is named the ‘sabine’. His ...

(b La Flèche, March 24, 1653; d Paris, July 9, 1716). French acoustician. In 1670 he went to Paris, where he attended the lectures of the Cartesian physicist Rohault; his works do not display the knowledge of advanced mathematics that characterizes the scientific progress of the age of Newton, although he held a chair of mathematics for a decade. He was elected to membership of the Académie des Sciences (1696), which left him free to develop his interest in acoustics. He thoroughly mastered the idea of frequency and was the first to interpret beats correctly. He also introduced the terms ‘acoustique’ (acoustics), ‘son harmonique’ (harmonic sound) and ‘noeud’ (node). His papers, though not so original as he may have thought them, were fairly clear and descriptive; they were very widely read, and certainly they had great effect upon the centrally important work of Daniel Bernoulli a quarter of a century later. He suffered from a speech defect and is said to have had no ear for music. His works include ...

(b 1892; d 1979). American engineer and acoustician. He had a distinguished professional career as an electrical engineer, specializing in research into radio wave transmission. In 1957 he retired from the directorship of radio research at Bell Telephone Laboratories. An enthusiastic amateur cellist, Schelleng undertook a programme of research into the acoustics of the violin family in his retirement. The combination of his musical experience and his background in electrical engineering resulted in a novel and extremely fruitful approach to the study of bowed string instruments, in which he drew an analogy between the exchange of vibrational energy between the string and the body of the instrument and the flow of electrical current round a circuit. His seminal paper, ‘The Violin as a Circuit’ (1963), provided the first realistic picture of how the violin functions as a whole, and became the foundation for most subsequent work in this area. Schelling was a pivotal figure in the group of researchers in violin acoustics which adopted the whimsical name Catgut Acoustical Society at his suggestion. He worked closely with Carleen Hutchins on the development of the Violin Octet, a set of new instruments based on the application of scaling theory to the violin. He was elected a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America in ...