So What?

So here we are. We know why bright sounds are bright and why sounds sound good or bad to us. Why should we care, beyond simple knowledge for the sake of knowldege?

The main reason that I can see that this matters is that if we understand the physics of what makes a sound poor, we can then study what exactly in humans produces the parts of sound that we consider poor, and learn how to improve each individual more quickly and effectively. For instance, if bad sounds are produced because more vibrations than are necessary are involved in a system, then we can search throughout the resperatory system to find what can produce those vibrations. Then we can make more educated guesses as to why Little Johnny can't make his Baritone sound good. Maybe he just needs to learn to open his jaw more, or open his throat to get the vibratory system clear of impedence. Or maybe his mouth is shaped in such a way that he needs to change instruments altogether because his upper jaw extends too far to get the lips to vibrate in a synchronized fashion. Then we can tell him to get braces or switch to the saxophone.

However, for those of you that say that we already know enough about that, we can also learn from the human example and teach computers how to generate sounds that are more expressive. If we know the difference between a bright and a dark tone, then we can make sound cards that understand the difference in tone between a marching trombone and a Mahler trombone.

It can even be used in room accoustics. If you learn that a particular room makes high tones really jump, then you know to play with a darker sound than if you play in a dead room that eats the highs.

If you don't really think that any of these reasons are good enough, then I can only ask you to care because I spent lots and lots of hours writing this thing. If that isn't good enough, then I guess you are just cold and heartless, fully at home in a world of adversity.

In any case, I've pretty much presented what I can to you. Press here to go back to the main conclusions page.

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