Musical Sound waves

[Kdivad@AOL.COM]

In a message dated Fri, 2 Aug 2002 7:03:28 PM Eastern Standard Time, tompiano@gate.net writes:

> 
> 
> 
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> Terry, a friend of mine attended a college course where the instructor
> challanged the class to determine the type of instrument being played just
> by listening to a recorded tone (A 440) of each instrument with the attack
> and decay portion of the tone removed. No one in the class could distinguish
> any of the instruments. I am not sure he is correct but I wonder if what he
> said is perhaps a clue as to one reason we can recognize different
> instruments.
> 
> David Koelzer
> Vintage Pianos
> DFW
> 
> Dave,
> With all due respect, was this a class for music majors or was it for a
> music/art curricular course for non majors? I could understand non-majors
> having trouble deciphering the differences but skilled music majors who live
> and breathe this stuff...I'd had to wager that the test would have entirely
> different results.
> Quite frankly their are tremendous tonal differences between the flute,
> clarinet, oboe, sax, trumpet...you name it.  Even the minute differences
> between all the reed instruments (clarinet, sax, and oboe) are quite unique
> in their tonal waves due to their size, bore, size, reed configuration and
> most importantly, scaling. Otherwise an orchestra would not sound like an
> orchestra but rather a resemblance of a piano (if you will) only with
> respective instruments being played.
> Now if there was a more fascinating debate, find out how you could take the
> same exact instrument and give it to 10 different players of all different
> skill levels get 10 entirely different tonal qualities.
> It would be like one piano could be made to sound like a Betsy Ross spinet,
> and the next player could literally transform it into a 
> Steinway D.
> Tom Servinsky, RPT

Tom, I don't know what type of class it was.  That was all the info my friend gave me. I think you are correct with music majors but still wonder how much attack and decay play a part in our ability to recognize different instruments.  I have a hunch they play a major role.
I'm not sure I understand your experiment, how would you accomplish the sound change from Betsy Ross to Steinway with just the player?

David Koelzer
Vintage Pianos
DFW