> Please share any enlightening directions that you have in mind.
For starters, Tom Rossing is a physics professor at Northern Illinois
University. His specialty is acoustical physics (he's also a
musician) and he has done research for some piano manufacturers for
many years. He did a quick session at a PTG thing many years ago
that was really good.
The address for the university is niu.edu I think they have it
set up so that mail will get to people with first name and last
initial for an ID, so you could try trossing@niu.edu
If that doesn't work, David Graham is the piano tech there and he is
on this list and is working with Tom on some project involving the
tuning of steel drums (!), so you could get Tom's address from David.
If you want to be more direct (and more costly), the phone number
for the physics dept. at NIU is: 815-753-1772. Just call and ask for
him.
Just FYI, Tom and an Asian colleague produced some really interesting
CDs demonstrating the way people perceive sound. They will create a
note with a whole bunch of "normal" partials (such as a note created
on a piano) and then remove various partials. One amazing "trick" is
that when there is a certain configuration of partials, the ear
actually "hears" a fundamental frequency which is not even present!
(If you get my drift.)
The other guy (the violinist) -- I don't even remember his name. But
I bet Tom knows him. If not, you could contact Fermilab in Batavia,
IL and tell them he did an open to the public talk there within the
last 2 years -- I think -- and tell them the topic (had to do with actually making
violins). I'm sure they can track him down and probably give you
journal references for articles he's published, etc.
Hope that's a start!
Barb Barasa
Ashland OR
"When nothing is sure,
everything is possible."
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