Scrolls and tone?

[Oded Kishony]

Forget comparing drums to bells, that's a misunderstanding of my point. I'm not talking about apples to oranges, I'm talking about apples to apples here. Are you saying that you and many others would have no trouble distinguishing between a circular bell and a trapezoidal bell, between a round drum and an octagonal drum, as long as the compared objects are of the same mass, construction materials & methods, AND everything is tuned to the same pitch? Hmm.....

That's exactly what this experiment demonstrated. Three very different shapes, square, triangle and circle, producing the same pitch, about 80% of a randomly chosen group were able to identify the shape by it's sound.

What about being able to discriminate between pouring hot and cold water?

My teacher/mentor Oliver Rodgers wrote an article about a violin that sounded wonderful in one key but sounded bad in another! He concluded that the instrument's resonances favored one key but the instrument had 'holes' in it's response precisely where the bad key way being played.

"There's more to this world than meets the ear" (Shakespeare?)

Oded Kishony

[David Burgess]

But at least nodes according to their definition in wave mechanics, do not vibrate.

Or blocks are in the violin body but I dont think there is an expilicit contribution as vibrating components, but with their role in mass distribution they have a definite implicit role.

Yes, but nodes aren't always in the same place. A spot which isn't moving at one frequency can be moving like crazy at a different frequency.

Isnt that also to do with the materials???

My ibex fingerplanes make quite a nice bell like tone when the blade is removed but i couldnt guess the shape of one of them .

Sure, my example using a drum versus a bell was extreme to illustrate the point. I bet I can tell the difference between a bronze bell and a bronze plate though.

Are you saying that you and many others would have no trouble distinguishing between a circular bell and a trapezoidal bell, between a round drum and an octagonal drum, as long as the compared objects are of the same mass, construction materials & methods, AND everything is tuned to the same pitch? Hmm.....

Yes, I think so, with a little experience or training.

I don't think the question is whether we can identify a scroll shape "out of the blue" by listening, but whether a different shape might make a difference.

Human hearing is an amazing thing. I have no trouble holding a Gatorade bottle under the faucet, and filling it within a half inch of the top without looking.

That's cold water. Haven't tried it with hot.

[matthew tucker]

Funny. I have long sensed that I can tell the difference between the sound of hot or cold water pouring!

In terms of whether one scroll shape or another can change the sound ... i'm in the YES camp.

Granted, the contribution will be subtle. But it's the many, many subtleties that makes a complex and pleasing sound.

Rokovak, the question was "can the shape of a scroll change the sound", not "can you tell the shape of the scroll by the sound ..."

there's a difference.

[JimMurphy]

Word has it ... by placing your ear and loosely-cupped hand around the scroll, you can "hear the Ocean".

No doubt in proportion to the Schumann frequency.

Jim