source file: mills2.txt Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 23:13:56 -0800 Subject: Sympatheti c Strings From: Daniel Wolf To Lydia Ayers: Of course the sound is _initially_ airborn. However, the issue is how exactly does it reach the strings. Try the following: (1) turn a small table upsidedown and stretch a dulcimer wire between two legs as tightly as possible. Now tune a string on your dulcimer to match the pitch of the wire between the table legs. Now try singing the matching tone. Since the dulcimer string is resonated and the other not, do not pay attention to the heard amplitudes, but rather to the visual amplitude of the strings. The unresonated string's movement will be minimal. (2) try singing directly into the _back_ of your violin. The string should oscillate sympathetically - via the soundpost and soundboard. Incidentally, although surface area is critical (as these experiments illustrate; in long string installations - like Alvin Lucier's _Music on a long, thin wire_ the scale is so enlarged that sympathetic vibrations can affect the magnet-driven string in catostrophic ways), the density of the material can also be very important. The tubular chimes described in this series actually exhibit two modes of operation: sympathetically, and as resonators open at both ends. If the tubes were thicker, or made of a denser metal, lead, for example, the sympathetic effect would have been negligible except when activated by sounds with extreme amplitudes, while the resonator effect would be unaffected (actually, for lower tones, the resonator is improved by having stiff walls). Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 27 Feb 1997 08:51 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA02765; Thu, 27 Feb 1997 08:51:07 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA21728 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id XAA11997; Wed, 26 Feb 1997 23:49:28 -0800 Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 23:49:28 -0800 Message-Id: <199702270748.PAA01586@csnt1.cs.ust.hk> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu