Principles of Musical Acoustics

by William M. Hartmann

Principles of Musical Acoustics focuses on the basic principles in the science and technology of music. Musical examples and specific musical instruments demonstrate the principles. The book begins with a study of vibrations and waves, in that order. These topics constitute the basic physical properties of sound, one of two pillars supporting the science of musical acoustics. The second pillar is the human element, the physiological and psychological aspects of acoustical science. The perceptual topics include loudness, pitch, tone color, and localization of sound. With these two pillars in place, it is possible to go in a variety of directions. The book treats in turn, the topics of room acoustics, audio both analog and digital, broadcasting, and speech. It ends with chapters on the traditional musical instruments, organized by family.

The mathematical level of this book assumes that the reader is familiar with elementary algebra. Trigonometric functions, logarithms and powers also appear in the book, but computational techniques are included as these concepts are introduced, and there is further technical help in appendices.

362 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 2013

Reviews

[Jon · Rating 1 out of 5]

In my opinion this book is very superficial and still not a precise introduction into the field of musical aoustics. I had the same problem with Donald E. Hall's "Musical Acoustics". I prefer John Backus' "The Acoustical Foundations of Music" and Fletcher & Rossing's "Physics of Musical Instruments" and the chapters on "Musical Acoustics", "Audio", and "Concert Hall Acoustics", in Thomas D. Rossing's "Springer Handbook of Acoustics".