Physics and the Violin

Multimedia · Wed May 23 00:00:00 EDT 2007

OSTI ID:1016746

Atwood, Bill ^[1]

---

1. SCIPP, UCSC

While the violin has been around for several hundreds of years, our understanding of how it works is still evolving. The character of violin sound is controlled by its frequency content, i.e., the harmonic content (or in musical terminology - the overtones). Both the player and the way in which the violin was made affect this frequency content. Both of these aspects will be examined. Research into how whole body vibrational modes can be manipulated by the violin maker during fabrication will be discussed. Examples of resulting violin sound will be demonstrated.

• Research Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-07CH11359
• OSTI ID: 1016746
• Resource Relation: Conference: Fermilab Colloquia, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batvia, Illinois (United States), presented on May 23, 2007; Related Information: This video is no longer available on the Fermi Colloquia website. The link in this record goes to the audio-file-only in the ScienceCinema.
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
FABRICATION
HARMONICS
PHYSICS
SOUND WAVES
VIOLIN
HARMONIC CONTENT
OVERTONES
FREQUENCY
VIBRATIONAL MODES