"Words and their meanings in a technical community-and both CAUT and PianoTech are technical communities-are important. They convey certain defined technical meanings to the participants. These are not casual discussions over the Sunday barbecue with Aunt Matilda. To misuse technical words or to apply one's own meanings to them-even if that usage was in vogue a hundred years ago-can only mislead and confuse the reader or participant." I agree, thus my *question* about the soundboard (alone) defined as a "transducer." I *never* said a soundboard should be called an amplifier. I agreed that it wasn't. I did say that I *could understand* someone saying the soundboard amplifies. I suppose I should regret that now. I do have White's book, but it is not my sole reference. I have read the Five Lectures series and in fact re-read it before I posted the second time, several days ago. I also have Benade's book, and though I don't have "The Physics of Musical Instruments," I do have Hall's "Musical Acoustics." My focus was on the relationship between the strings and soundboard, how the sound was created, what makes it so loud. My (cursory) understanding, stated in my posts, was that it was through the coupling of the strings and the soundboard, that resonance plays an essential role, and that the soundboard is far more efficient at radiating sound energy. Again, all these points are in my previous posts. I also appreciate that there is still a great deal to be understood and that the way musical instruments work and how we hear them is still in some ways "mysterious." I have only ever given my *opinion* (my thoughts) and my posts were in the spirit of inquiry. I try very hard never to "misuse technical words." I don't think I have, but I am not infallible. Far from it-I am a student. I am not an RPT yet and I am certainly not an expert in piano technology. When it comes to this stuff, I defer to the experts on this board. It was never my intention to define anything. I tried to be very careful in the way I asked things and gave my understanding. I only sought to understand the terminology. *In another post it was suggested that I keep my comments short and to the point. I try, but I'll try harder. *And that I introduce myself. In my first post I gave my last name and a bit about my background, but will happily share more: My name is Gary Hodge and I live in Virginia. I worked for 16 years as computer scientist and network engineer/ developer first for Siemens and then Cisco Systems. I have an MS in computer science. I took my turn as stay-at-home parent in 2001 when we moved back from CA to VA. Now that our boys are old enough I'd like to work again, but I want something that will keep me close to home and allow me to schedule my own hours. That, combined with my love for the piano, lead me to piano tuning and repair. I've been interested in acoustics since I began working in voice processing for Siemens PBX and voicemail systems (digitizing voice). But I'm not an expert in acoustics by any stretch. And I am not a mechanical engineer or a physicist. I am studying piano technology with Rick Butler in Bowie, MD. (But my opinions are my own-I haven't even shared this discussion with Rick yet). I'm an associate member of the PTG. I don't currently work in a school environment, but I find the posts here at CAUT helpful and informative. I've tried not to be contentious or disrespectful in my posts. Gary Ps. If I can go back on my word for just a moment and talk about "transducer" one more time, I actually like it if it is applied to the strings as well: in that it describes an interaction where vibrational energy is converted into sound (energy). As I mentioned in an earlier post, it's aptly analogous to the loudspeaker's driver as transducer: the voice coil (strings) transfers its energy to the cone (soundboard) and together turn electricity (hammer strike) into vibrational energy to create sound. In the speaker, the voice coil generates the vibration (like the strings) but doesn't radiate much sound (like the strings) but *is by definition* part of the "transducer" (like the strings?). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20090517/c648d7bd/attachment.htm>
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