At 10:50 AM -0600 11/18/01, Ron Nossaman wrote: >and if these longitudinal vibrations pass so easily directly >across the bridge that they excite the rear duplex, then you should be able >to pluck the rear duplex segment and get a fundamental tone from the >speaking length of that same string.... That does not follow. First of all, the only transverse oscillations you could possibly excite in the speaking length by plucking the back length would be the fundamental of the back length and its upper partials. I think it would probably be wrong to presume in any case that the plucking action is similar to the blow of a hammer and will produce similar waves. We know very well this is not so from the difference in the immediate tone colour produced by the two methods, so we can imagine there are other great differences too, especially as regards lengthwise waves. You still seem to be regarding the bridge as an impediment to the lengthwise waves. My view of these waves is that they travel along the wire itself and will no more be affected by areas of contact or shallow bends than the light waves passing along an optical fibre. Overhead power cables sing when current is passing through them and when a telegraph wire is carrying a phone converstation, it whistles. I'm not saying there's an analogy here, but there could well be. JD PS. Conklin's lectures are at <http://www.speech.kth.se/music/5_lectures>. They go more deeply into the matter but not all that deep.
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