Stories tagged acoustics
Ancient wall art at Cave at Lascaux, France: Was music used here to soothe the savage breast?
Courtesy Thag the cavemanDo you enjoy hearing your favorite rock group perform their ear-splitting music in a huge cavernous concert arena with flashing colored lights and giant video imagery? Or listening to hymns and spirituals bounce off the vaulted ceiling of a church full of colorful stained-glassed windows and religious icons? Well, I’ve got news for you. It could be you’re attracted to such things by a deep-seated urge to mix echoing music and art; a practice mankind has apparently been doing since the Stone Age. At least according to a new theory coming out of the University of Paris.
Professor Iegor Reznikoff, a specialist in the resonance of building and spaces, theorizes that the most resonant areas of prehistoric-era caves are also the locations where most of the cave wall paintings appear.
Reznikoff stumbled upon the idea by accident.
"The first time I happened to be in a prehistoric cave, I tried the resonance in various parts of the cave, and quickly the question arose: Is there a relation between resonance and locations of the paintings?"
Reznikoff tested his theory inside various well-known French caves where prehistoric art adorned the walls. As he moved about each space, singing and humming, Reznikoff measured where the optimum resonance occurred.
To his surprise, the most resonant areas of each cave were usually spots where most of the cave art was concentrated. And where the resonance was the greatest, the artwork was the densest. In smaller spaces, such as narrow passages between larger cavern rooms where painting would have been difficult, the walls were marked with red lines.
Bear Bone Flute: Neanderthal-aged flute made from bear's femur
Courtesy WikipediaIt occurred to Reznikoff that perhaps a cave’s acoustics was important to prehistoric culture, and may be the reason why primitive musical instruments, such as a Neanderthal flute made out of the femur of a bear, have been found in similar caves.
"The [prehistoric] tribes could make sounds with stones, pieces of wood, different types of drums and so on," Reznikoff says. "Of course the Paleolithic tribes did sing, as do all cultural groups from other regions. That they did so in the caves is shown by my studies. The ritual purpose appears very convincing."
This may explain why the popularity of cavernous concert halls, and large arena music performances, or even subterranean music clubs continue to be popular to this day. Perhaps the ancestral effects of long ago cave rituals still resonate in us.
Tags : A&T Professor Has Technology to Monitor Bridge Safety
"Dr. Mannur Sundaresan, professor of mechanical engineering, has developed a single channel continuous sensor that has the potential to detect and locate early crack growth in structures, thereby providing timely information to prevent catastrophic failures. This single channel continuous sensor can detect the leading edge of the acoustic emission event, occurring anywhere in the region covered by the sensor." North Carolina A&T State University
The amphitheater at Epidaurus has acoustics so good you can hear a pin drop, even when the seats are packed with 15,000 people: Photo by Randy Peters from flickr.com
The ancient Greek amphitheater at Epidaurus has long been famous for its marvelous sound qualities. Audience members in the back row could hear every sound, even as soft as a match being struck.
Until recently, no one has unlocked the secrets of these perfect acoustics. The Greeks themselves thought it was the shape of the amphitheater. But other theaters built on the same model could not reproduce the sound quality of Epidaurus.
Now, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have finally solved the problem. They found that the limestone seats work as a filter to dampen the sound of the crowd, while at the same time amplifying the sounds from the stage, . Other amphitheaters used the same design but different materials, and were never able to duplicate the results.
Stradavarius sound from graphite and balsa
Violin engineering: image modified from TheViolinSite.com via wikipediaCan we make violins today that sound as sweet as those made by Antonio Stradivari? Joseph Curtin (Ann Arbor, Mich.),who received a 2005 MacArthur Foundation “genius award” for his violin designs, thinks so. In reference to violins made by Douglas Martin, Curtin stated that
“the traditional violin became obsolete in early July of 2005.”
One of Mr. Martin's prototype violins, Balsa 4, when passed around at a violin design workshop at Oberlin College, startled the participants with its punch and responsiveness. Using balsa for lightness and graphite for stiffness, Martin is breaking the traditional violin design rules.
New materials "sing"
Another violin maker to use modern materials like graphite fibers is Martin Schleske. Ingolf Turban, a touring concert violinist, compared Mr. Schleske’s latest violin, which has a top made of a mix of spruce and graphite, with a 1721 Stradivarius by recording passages from Mozart’s Violin Concerto in D Major with each. He told Mr. Schleske he preferred the new one.
I have never been playing any violin with such a singing E string,” Mr. Turban said in a testimonial. “It is no longer like playing violin but like singing.”
Violin acoustics analysed in physics laboratory
George Bissinger, a physicist at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., is using medical-imaging gear, laser scanners, arrays of microphones and computers to measure and model how the parts of a violin react once energy is introduced by a bow, fingertip, pick or, in the laboratory, the repeated taps of a tiny hammer.
Particularly important, Dr. Bissinger said, is determining which factors translate the side-to-side sawing of a bow on a string into vertical motions of the violin top. “Up and down is what matters,” he said.
Another important influence, particularly on low violin notes, is the movement of air in and out of the f-holes, Dr. Bissinger said. If the dimensions are right, the air sloshes forward and back like disturbed water in a bathtub (or air in an organ’s pipes) at rates that increase the instrument’s volume.
Want to learn more?
I recommend viewing the video and multimedia graphics found in the New York Times post, "String Theory: New Approaches to Instrument Design".
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