piano/violin

[Delwin D Fandrich]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Meyer" <cmpiano@home.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: June 10, 2001 10:25 AM
Subject: Re: piano/violin


> While reading all this interesting discussion this morning I suddenly
> realized that  I've not noticed the use of an important word.
>
> It's TRANSDUCER!!
>
> A soundboard doing its job is transducing  (any of various devices that
> transmit energy from one system to another).
> Yes, it uses vibration as the means to do this and any random resonance in
> the board makes it more efficient at the frequency of resonance.  The "Q"
of
> the resonance determines the efficiency at that point.
----------------------------------------------

It's actually been used quite a bit. Just not recently.

It's taken a long time to get folks away from the concept of the soundboard
as amplifier and toward the concept of the soundboard as transducer. The
amplifier analogy is a warmer, fuzzier concept--not to mention, a familiar
one. Marketing people, especially, seem to be in love with the word (still).
And it does seem so logical; there isn't much 'sound' coming from the
strings and there's so much sound coming from the soundboard--ergo, the
soundboard must be amplifying the sound.

It wasn't all that long ago that the mention of the word 'transducer' would
draw a variety of puzzled--or blank--looks: It's a what?

But, progress is being made! Fifteen or twenty years ago when I would ask a
class to define the piano soundboard, a majority would respond, "it's an
amplifier." Today if I ask the same question, the majority will respond,
"it's a transducer." And, they'll even know what the word means.

Regards,

Del