Computer modelling of violin playing

Abstract

In the last 15 years there has been significant progress in the understanding of the oscillations of musical instruments. This progress comes in part from the increased understanding of the basic physical mechanisms involved in the oscillations, but some of the major successes arise from a successful adaptation of the physical models to rapid computer calculation of the waveforms of oscillation. In this article we review research on the bowed string, where computation speed is now allowing a fruitful exploration of the enormous parameter space needed to describe the instrument, its strings and the string player's control of them in a musical context.