Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics: Second, Revised Edition (Dover Books On Music: Acoustics)

by Arthur H. Benade

Book Overview

Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics is a landmark book in its field, hailed for its astonishingly clear, delightfully readable statement of everything of acoustical importance to music-making. Though... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 048626484X
• Release Date: November 1990
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 608 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The best book I have seen

The best book on this topic that I have seen. Benade is a master of writing clearly and giving great examples that help the reader to visualize or imagine why sound is acting the way it does. I am using it in my quest to design a new kind of guitar, and it is extremely helpful. I also have Horns String and Harmony by Benade. He is a nuclear physicist with a penchant for audio, and I am glad he beat his weapons into flutes.

Excellent Introduction to Musical Acoustics

This book is an excellent introduction to the topic. Benade explains the subject assuming that the reader has no background in science (good for musicians) and no background in music (good for scientists). He writes the book as if he's translating a mathematical proof into plain English. Benade starts from scratch (even the notion of pitch is considered alien) and builds wonderfully intuitive understandings. Yes, this is an old book, so if you are NOT new to this field (and not afraid of math) then you'd be more interested in one of the Rossing books. But on the plus side, because the book was written before Benade had access to modern laboratory techniques, the "experiments" described in the book are all simple to understand and can be done at home. Unlike the Rossing books (which I also highly recommend), Benade's book does not read like a textbook or a reference source. It is very easy-to-read, so you can actually benefit from just sitting down and reading it (though Benade does provide problems at the end of the chapter for the dedicated reader). In response to one of the unfavorable reviews posted, I do not find any fault with Benade when he states (p. 66) that "lopping off the higher frequency ... harmonics does not alter the perceived pitch of the sound." In fact, this statement comes right after an in-depth explanation of how the higher frequency partials DETERMINE the pitch for INHARMONIC sounds (e.g. chimes and bells). Perhaps the reviewer was confused by Benade's terminology. As explained on p. 63, Benade uses the word "partial" generically to describe higher frequency components. Benade reserves the term "harmonics" for partials that have whole-number relationships. I wouldn't use this work as a college textbook, but I would certainly add it to the students' list of additional recommended references.

An Outstanding Book, Designed to Make You Think

While Benade's first book, "Horns Strings and Harmony", has some errors which he himself later acknowledged, "Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics" is one of the seminal books in the field. That doesn't mean that it is perfect in every respect, but it introduces a broad range of concepts in musical acoustics without the use of advanced mathematics, in a writing style that will appeal to the musician in addition to the scientist. The fine details of his theories regarding psychoacoustics, particularly pitch perception, have been challenged. But his general concepts are well accepted, and he presents them in a way that makes the reader think. His descriptions of experimental techniques (which generally aren't very complicated) have inspired me and others to repeat his experiments. Sometimes, results don't agree - that's when you have to think. Psychoacoustics relies on neurology and psychology, two sciences that, despite much brilliant work over the last 100 years, are still in their infancy. So, you can't judge his theories on psychoacoustics in the same light as his description of wave propagation, room modes, and perturbation functions in clarinets. As a musician and an engineer, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in how music and physics intersect. This is not the book to answer all your questions - it is the book to get you started on asking the right questions.

Benade is One of the Greats in This field

I studied with Dr. Benade, taking his course in musical acoustics, at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, some years ago. Dr. Benade was a brilliant and dedicated scientist in the area of musical acoustics, but he was highly opinionated and sometimes inflexible. He refused to accept, for example, that flutes could produce "whisper tones", a standard 20th Century player's/composer's technique which I have used many times in my compositions (and can perform myself on the flute).Nonetheless, this book is a very important book to read and own if you are interested in the fundamentals of the acoustics of musical instruments (not performing spaces as other reviewers have pointed out). This book was the text which Benade used to teach his courses. Add this to your collection of musical acoustics books...and be sure to include "Horns Strings and Harmony", Benade's earlier book, as well as the book by John Pierce and of course the book by Helmholtz.

A great book! A must for instrument makers.

I think this book has taught me more about the instrument I make (uilleann bagpipes) and it does not even mention it. When it says fundamentals in its title it means it. you will get to the bottom of why instruments work in thye way they do and so improve yuor own acoustical design.