This book is about music. the instruments and players who produce it.
and the technologies that support it. Although much modern music is
produced by electronic means. its underlying basis is still traditional
acoustical sound production. and that broad topic provides the basis for
this book. There are many fine books available that treat musical
acoustics largely from the physical point of view. The approach taken
here is to present only the fundamentals of musical physics. while
giving special emphasis to the relation between instrument and player
and stressing the characteristics of instruments that are of special
concern to engineers and technicians in- volved in the fields of
recording. sound reinforcement. and broadcasting. In order to understand
musical instruments in their normal performance environments. the
student must have a basic working knowledge of physical and
architectural acoustics. The book begins with a review of the elements
of acoustics. stressing the nature of sound fields and phenomena that
are wavelength-dependent. The book then moves on to a discussion of
those aspects of psychological acoustics that are of special concern to
music technicians. most notably concepts of stereophonic imaging.
loudness-related phenomena. and critical band theory.
