Experiments to assess musical instrument quality
John M. Bowsher · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1976
Work in progress, supported by the Science Research Council, on the transient behavior of trombones and its possible relation to quality is described. The approach is along three paths: (a) a measurement of the input impedance firstly in the steady state and then in the transient state; (b) a study of the basic fluid dynamics of the system to examine the significance of the effects of microturbulence, boundary-layer fluctuations, etc. on the starting transient; (c) a psychological study of the decision processes employed by players and listeners and the subjective magnitudes involved when assessing instrument quality. Although only very preliminary indications are to hand, approach (c) is beginning to seem the most useful and data obtained in respect of other instruments also indicate that nonacoustical factors may be paramount in determining the overall judgment of the musical quality of an instrument. For example, according to our first investigations, the most important attribute of a trombone seems to be the mechanical behavior of the slide.