Sympathetic Strings

To Daniel Wolf,

Sorry, I don't have time to get experiment (1) together this afternoon,
as I have to leave to taeach in a few minutes. I tried experiment (2),
singing directly onto the back of the violin. Th e amplitude was
about the same as it was when I sang directly at the string on the
front of the violin. The resonator (the body of the violin) does not
respond to the pitch by itself - I don't get a sympathetic ringing at
the pitch if I hold all the strings (both sides of the bridge) so that
they cannot vibrate. So I think the frequency of the pitch I'm
singing must be transmitted by air to the string, and the loscloser my
mouth (the sound source) and the louder the pitch, the better.
Probably then the resonator and the string intereact, transmitting
the vibrations back and forth (since they're connected) so that
the resonator amplifies the sound of the violin.

Lydia Ayers

Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 27 Feb 1997 10:52 +0100
Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA25876; Thu, 27 Feb 1997 10:52:55 +0100
Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA25709
Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
id BAA15049; Thu, 27 Feb 1997 01:51:16 -0800
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 01:51:16 -0800
Message-Id: <3315584D.7F0B@ix.netcom.com>
Errors-To: madole@mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu