Abstract
Uniform strings have a harmonic sound; nonuniform strings have an inharmonic sound. This paper experiments with musical instruments based on nonuniform/inharmonic strings. Given a precise description of the string, its spectrum can be calculated using standard techniques. Dissonance curves are used to motivate specific choices of spectrum. A particular inharmonic string consisting of three segments (two equal unwound segments surrounding a thicker wound portion) is used in the construction of the hyperpiano. A second experiment designs a string with overtones that lie on steps of the 10-tone equal tempered scale. The strings are sampled, and digital (software) versions of the instruments are made available along with a call for composers interested in writing for these new instruments.
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Hobby, K., Sethares, W.A., Zhang, Z. (2017). Using Inharmonic Strings in Musical Instruments. In: Agustín-Aquino, O., Lluis-Puebla, E., Montiel, M. (eds) Mathematics and Computation in Music. MCM 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10527. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71827-9_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71827-9_9
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