Picking up bad vibrations

When reviewing a book, one naturally wishes to concentrate on positives. For a book about the physics of music, for example, it would be great to be able to describe how the book successfully conveys the complex physics that underpins how musical sounds are produced and appreciated, both in theory and in the practical situation of particular musical instruments. Unfortunately, in the case of Barry Parker’s Good Vibrations: The Physics of Music, this aspiration is difficult to fulfil. The problem is that, despite its title, long sections of this book are utterly devoid of any physics and what little there is can be boiled down to very elementary discussions of transverse and longitudinal wave motion on a stretched string and in pipes. As far as it goes, this discussion is both clear and helpful; however, it does not go very far.

Paradoxically, the successes of this book – and there are some – come in areas relatively far from physics. Parker’s discussions of the physiology of hearing and singing are excellent, despite occasional unexplained features on the diagrams that accompany them. Some of the discussion of specific musical instruments is also informative; for example, I found the author’s explanation of bowing a violin string, with its complex balance between static and kinetic friction in the bow contact, both enlightening and helpful. It is this interplay and the variation of pressure, bow speed and contact point by the player that gives stringed instruments their enormous range of sound quality. However, Parker, a professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at Idaho State University, seems to think that the main purpose of the bass bar and sound post on a violin is structural, to bear the pressure of the strings on the belly. In fact, although strengthening is indeed an important function of the bass bar, the main function of the sound post is – as its name implies – to improve the resonant properties of the instrument by linking together the belly and back into a single vibrating cavity.

One might accept that the page limit of a popular-science book precludes a discussion of many interesting physics topics, but in far too many places this book has been padded out with inessential detail. One example is the plethora of potted biographies of musicians. These profiles are simultaneously too brief to be useful and too long to be entertaining. Also irritating is the author’s tendency to relate bizarre personal anecdotes for no obvious purpose. The beginning of chapter 12 neatly encapsulates both flaws. It starts with a two-page discussion of the career of Elvis Presley, complete with a line drawing of him. Eventually, Parker sees fit to inform us that he “never heard Elvis in person, although he did perform in the city where I was living shortly after he became famous. I delayed and couldn’t get tickets, but he was certainly the talk of the town at the time. I have, however, heard many other singers over the years and have enjoyed all of them.” Although this is perhaps the most banal anecdote in the entire book, it is not untypical.

Another characteristic of this book is its somewhat dated feel. The author’s folksy style reminds me of radio programmes from the 1960s, and at various points he makes curiously out-of-touch statements. His grasp of modern musical genres, for example, seems tenuous: he refers to a Paula Abdul hit recorded in 1991 as “very recent”. In a chapter discussing the complexity of musical sounds, he advises readers that “if you’re not sure what an oscilloscope is, you merely have to look in your living room or den; the heart of your television set is an oscilloscope”. Well, maybe, but with the increasing prevalence of wide-screen liquid-crystal or plasma-screen devices, maybe not.

The final section of the book suffers even more from technological obsolescence. Although it purports to cover “new technologies”, the iPod only makes an appearance in a somewhat bizarre epilogue. Much of the information that is provided is both highly indigestible and impossibly dull; for example, on one half-page the acronym MIDI (short for musical instrument digital interface) appears an amazing 21 times. A great deal of the discussion about recording software packages, meanwhile, is surely already out of date – and in any case, who would choose a book like this to learn how to use software when there are perfectly good and much more detailed manuals available? The author does provide a nice discussion of the operating principles of different types of microphones, but then spoils the effect somewhat by adding a long list of different types of directional microphones without any information on how they operate.

Fortunately, after this dense presentation of abstruse detail, the final chapter on the acoustics of concert halls is both interesting and clear. There is a nice discussion of the absorption coefficients of building materials and the art – in something so complex and dependent on human perception, it is more an art than a science – of optimizing the design of a concert hall.

It is sad that many opportunities for similar enlightenment have been missed. The “new technologies” section would have been an excellent place to discuss some of the more egregious physics misconceptions displayed on the Web discussion pages of hi-fi enthusiasts. The section on the functioning of musical instruments would have greatly benefited from, for example, a discussion of the Chaldni patterns and vibration modes of bowed thin metal plates and how this translates to the vibrations of the wooden plates of instruments. The stroboscopic investigation of such patterns on real instruments is an increasingly fruitful area of collaboration between physicists and instrument builders.

As a physicist and an amateur musician, my problem with this book is the expectation implied by the title. Someone specifically wishing to learn about the physics underlying music will come away disappointed and wanting more. Nor can I strongly recommend the book to a physicist wishing to learn about music. Although the second section is really a partial introduction to music theory, this is much better done in specialist elementary books on this subject. The second half of the book has periods of stultifying tedium; many topics with more substantial physics content could have been included without increasing the book’s length if all the dubious anecdotes and biographical snippets had been excised. At times long-winded, at others infuriatingly lacking in detail, this book may have some good vibrations – but it signally failed to find a resonance with me.

• Watch Brian Foster discuss Einstein and his life-long passion for music in this special video report.

• You can also enjoy Foster playing a violin duet with award-winning musician Jack Liebeck in this separate video.