WEDNESDAY MORNING, 12 NOVEMBER 2003 SAN ANTONIO ROOM, 9:00 TO 11:50 A.M.

Session 3aMU

Musical Acoustics: Honoring the Contributions of Gabriel Weinreich I: Piano Acoustics

Thomas D. Rossing, Chair

Physics Department, University of Illinois, DeKalb, Illinois 60115

Chair’s Introduction—9:00

Invited Papers

9:05
3aMU1. Gabriel Weinreich: The life and style. William M. Hartmann ~Phys. and Astron., Michigan State Univ., Lansing, MI
48824!
Gabriel Weinreich ~Gabi! was born in Vilna, Poland ~now the capitol of Lithuania! one year prior to the founding of the Acoustical
Society of America. When the second world war began in central Europe, Gabi’s family came, in serial fashion, to New York
City—Gabi himself arriving in 1941. Gabi studied physics at Columbia, and received a Ph.D. in 1953 for a thesis on atomic physics
directed by the legendary I. I. Rabi. He subsequently worked on fundamental properties of semiconductors, first at Bell Labs, then,
starting in 1960, at the University of Michigan. In 1977 he turned his attention to the acoustics of musical instruments, mainly the
piano and bowed strings. He studied all phases of the physical elements: string excitation, string vibration, coupling, and radiation.
Gabi brought his special style to acoustics—a combination of theory and experiment that imaginatively imports ideas and techniques
from one area of physics into another, a willingness to attack traditional problems afresh by returning to first principles, and the ability
to present ideas with incisive wit and charm so that information is not only informative but is also entertaining.

9:20
3aMU2. Piano acoustics—A review. Anders Askenfelt ~Dept. of Speech, Music and Hearing, Royal Inst. of Technol. ~KTH!,
SE-10044 Stockholm, Sweden!
The design of the piano as we know it today dates back to the second half of the 19th century. The history of studies of the
acoustics of the piano begins during the same period. In this talk, known facts and unanswered questions about the acoustics of the
piano are reviewed.

9:50

3aMU3. Modeling the dynamics of piano keys. Celine Brenon ~Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Arts et Metiers, B.P. 3525, 49 035
Angers Cedex, France, Celine.Brenon@angers.ensam.fr! and Xavier Boutillon ~Lab. for Mech. of Solids, CNRS—Ecole
Polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau Cedex, France!
The models of piano keys available in the literature are crude: two degrees of freedom and a very few dynamical or geometrical
parameters. Experiments on different piano mechanisms ~upright, grand, one type of numerical keyboard! exhibit strong differences
in the two successive phases of the key motion which are controlled by the finger. Understanding the controllability of the escapement
velocity ~typically a few percents for professional pianists!, the differences between upright and grand pianos, the rationale for the
numerous independent adjustments by technicians, and the feel by the pianist require sophisticated modeling. In addition to the inertia
of the six independently moving parts of a grand piano mechanism, a careful modeling of friction at pivots and between the jack and
the roll, of damping and nonlinearities in felts, and of internal springs will be presented. Simulations will be confronted to the
measurements of the motions of the different parts. Currently, the first phase of the motion and the transition to the second phase are
well understood while some progress must still be made in order to describe correctly this short but important phase before the
escapement of the hammer. @Work done in part at the Laboratory for Musical Acoustics, Paris.#

10:20
3aMU4. Physical modeling of the piano. N. Giordano and M. Jiang ~Dept. of Phys., Purdue Univ., 525 Northwestern Ave., West
Lafayette, IN 47907!
Over the past several years, this project has been aimed at constructing a physical model of the piano. The goal is to use Newton’s
laws to describe the motion of the hammers, strings, soundboard, and surrounding air, and thereby calculate the sound produced by the
instrument entirely from first principles. The structure of the model is described, along with experiments that have provided essential
tests and guidance to the calculations. The state of the model and, especially, how this work can lead to new insights and understand-
ing into the piano are discussed. In many cases the work and the specific questions addressed along the way have followed paths
initially inspired and developed by Gabriel Weinreich. @Work supported by NSF.#

2382 J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 114, No. 4, Pt. 2, October 2003 146th Meeting: Acoustical Society of America 2382