FS/Ph 9: The Science of Music -- Fall 2021 -- random resources

Here is a list and description of books that used to be on reserve in the Sherman Fairchild Library for FS 9. They are likely now on the library shelves. You might find something of interest there. Some might be useful in relation to your term project.

Here is a list and description of some sound analysis freeware compiled in less fraught times. There is actually a huge industry, and new products appear at an ever-accelerating rate. Spectroid (linked here) was my latest addition to the list, a free app that gives a nice real-time spectrum of the sound coming in to your device.

There are zillions of "educational" sound-related pages on the Web, with demos, simulations, explanations, and derivations. But the physics of acoustics and music is a rather more stable field than the engineering and technology. Many of the links I give explicitly are part of someone's much larger effort to present some science. So, if you use your browser to go back up their tree, you will likely come to a directory or a page with lots of related links.

Here are a few, in random order:

Visualizing molecule motion of sound in air -- a cartooney animation

whyyouhearwhatyouhear.com is a maintained and updated Web site that goes with the book of the same name (on our SF Library reserve shelf). It's got great demos, resource links, and explanations.

At the University of New South Wales (Australia), they have a serious physics of music program with lots of stuff on-line. (Here is another portal to their site.

A group at the University of Colorado produces wonderful interactive physics simulations. This is the one on waves on a string.

Hyperphysics, produced at Georgia State University, has a "Sound and Hearing" section with useful materials.

I can't figure out who Paul Falstad is, but he puts great physics applets on-line.

These days, Wolfram Enterprises is the home of much more than Mathematica. Three demonstrations on demonstrations.wolfram.com recently caught my eye: locating the hammer on a piano wire; string vibrations; and vibrations of simple systems. These demos are best with a free downloadable player. (Also note that Caltech has a Mathematica site license -- as well as lots of other stuff you can get for free from IMSS.)

Jim Woodhouse is a professor of mechanical engineering at Cambridge University and a recognized expert on the acoustics of string instruments. He is currently constructing an on-line reference, with qualitative and technical expositions in parallel, of everything important that he knows about the subject, at: euphonics.org.

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