Product Description

This extraordinarily comprehensive text, requiring no special background in physics, math or music, discusses the nature of sound waves, musical instruments, musical notation, acoustic materials, elements of sound reproduction systems—from the telephone to stereo sound systems—and electronic music. "Very thorough, and full of well-presented facts."—Musical Times. 376 figures.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #319779 in Books
• Published on: 1967-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 460 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780486217697
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Customer Reviews

From the Father of the Mark II
The science of musical sound has evolved a great deal since 1966 when the second edition of 'Music, Physics and Engineering' was first published. However, this historical work can be of value to musical engineers even in today's fast changing technological world.

The author, Harry F. Olson was staff vice president of the acoustical and electromechanical research department of RCA laboratories. The thorough science reported in this book was perhaps instrumental in the development of the RCA Mark II Electronic Music Synthesizer of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.

Chapters such as: Sound Waves, Musical Terminology, Musical Scales, Resonators and Radiators, Musical Instruments, Characteristics of Musical Instruments and Properties of Music have much to teach those with an engineering background about the science of music.

This book has been extraordinarily useful to me in seeking to design sound events in software with nothing other than a 'C' compiler and some audio file format spec sheets to work with. It is a great read for the aspiring musical engineer.

Still could be helpful
Although this book was first published over 50 years ago, there are still many parts of it that can still be read profitably, due mostly to the fact that musical theory and the physics of musical instruments does not change with time. I read the book years ago to get some ideas for physics demonstrations in the classroom, and it was of great assistance in that regard. Those readers who intend to specialize in musical engineering would still find it a useful supplement to more modern treatments. The audio CD of course was not known at the time of publication, nor even the 8-track tape, but the development of both of these technologies was dependent on what came before them, and so a perusal of this book will allow insight into more contemporary technologies. The book also is one of the first to emphasize the psychological factors that must be taken into account when developing a technology for sound reproduction. The author in fact emphasizes the need for paying attention to the psychological factors in the preface to the second edition of the book. With the incredible advances in sound reproduction that have taken place since this book was written, one can appreciate his comments even more. One can only give thanks to the ingenuity of the sound and musical engineers both in the author's time and now for giving the listener an incredibly rich and satisfying auditory experience.

Still relevant and should-be-required-reading
Sure, electronic music technology has advanced a fair bit since this book was written. BUT, the laws of physics have not changed. Olson's book does a fantastic job of explaining the inner workings of timbre, acoustics, recording, sound reproduction, music synthesis, and various other scientific rigor concerning all things sound. This book should be required reading for anyone who does anything in the fields of sound design, recording, production, and even composition and performance of music.

In addition to containing a great explanation of the theory behind musical acoustics, the book is also loaded with lots of empirical measurements of the acoustic characteristics of real-world instruments; it's an invaluable reference for anyone working with live music.