Future Challenges in the Area of Musical Acoustics
The chair explained some of the background issues related to the Culture and Creativity Programme, and then asked the invited speakers to spark the discussion by outlining what they think are the most important future challenges.
Richard Smith pointed out the importance of education, i.e. how many manufacturers could learn a lot more about their instruments from the expertise and knowledge in the musical acoustics community, and vice versa. The network should generate new means of cross-dissemination.
Later on in the discussion, Richard (and other makers) stressed the need amongst instrument makers for more and better tools for scientific measurement and analysis. The network website could provide useful links for this purpose.
Jim Woodhouse argued that we should start combining physical understanding with their perceptual consequences - a fairly unexplored terrain so far - so that the research will start to be of more use to instrument makers, who can more directly apply the outcomes of such research to the improvements and understanding of their instruments.
Jim also mentioned the idea of new instruments for disabled, which seems to be a topic addressed by various groups and individuals, but rather uncoordinated. This would enable also new music therapy possibilities.
Pedro Rebelo made a fundamental point about the difference in methodology between science and the arts, and that an improved understanding of each other research cultures is required in order to generate the kind of interdisciplinary research outcomes envisaged within the culture and creativity programme. Pedro argued for research projects that develop along two parallel lines (one in each discipline), rather than having research in one area simply inform an activity in the other discipline. The influence of the performer on instrument sound was mentioned as an example where a musical acoustics project should be informed concurrently from both perspectives.
David Howard made a point about how musicians' language often works (e.g. teaching of singing) despite not being literal, and suggested that research is needed to explore and understand this, particularly in the context of bridging the gap between scientists and 'artists', and how they can better overcome some of the language problems that exist today.
David went on to make a plea for improving the understanding what naturalness means: why can we tell difference between synthesised/modelled sounds and real sounds? This links in strongly with the earlier suggestions by Jim Woodhouse.
A further suggestion by David, which seemed to resonate well with a large part of the audience, was to put together an exhibition of exciting demos of musical acoustics. The term 'travelling exhibition' was heard, after which some practical considerations were pointed out, suggesting that at least as a start, a stationary exhibition might be more realistic.
Michael Alcorn raised the issue of the difficulty for composers and performers to control physical models (including the typical software platforms they are usually available on), and asked whether there were any ideas as to how this problem might be alleviated.
Michael also mentioned his strong interest in the area of tactile feedback in instruments, and the potential for exploring model parameters.
Research on material properties for musical instruments was mentioned by several contributors to the discussion.