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Re: Midterm Question - Sort of



Somebody tutor me here: Several musical instruments are not harmonically
driven -- no?

I can't think of any musical instruments that *are* harmonically
driven, unless you count a speaker driven by an amplified synthesizer.
Resonance would be a distinct drawback in a speaker.

There are sounding structures that are harmonically driven - by
acoustic power. The xylophone is one, and the vibraphone will
demonstrate resonance by tuning the resonant structure. Violin bodies
exhibit very low Q resonances, and the goodness of an instrument is
related somehow to this response structure. The body is driven by the
bridge, which in turn rocks in its plane when driven by a string
which oscillates in a sort of circular mode when driven by the stick-
slip phenomenon of a bow drawn across it. Nowhere in that (backward)
sequence do I use (or need) to refer to resonance. I should note that
cellos typically have a resonance (called a "wolf note") that must be
damped for the instrument to be playable.

Leigh