Editorial Review
Landmark book by leading expert, hailed for its astonishingly clear, delightfully readable explication of everything acoustical important to music-making. "Comprehensive . . . rigorous . . . well-organized . . . will surely be the text of choice." — American Scientist. "Recommended for music lovers and audiophiles" — Stereo Review. Over 300 illustrations. Examples, experiments, and questions conclude each chapter.
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Customer Reviews
The best book I have seen 
2007-08-09
The best book on this topic that I have seen. Benade is a master of writing clearly and giving great examples that help the reader to visualize or imagine why sound is acting the way it does. I am using it in my quest to design a new kind of guitar, and it is extremely helpful. I also have Horns String and Harmony by Benade. He is a nuclear physicist with a penchant for audio, and I am glad he beat his weapons into flutes.
Just about everything 2007-05-15
This book is close to exhaustive and can be an excellent addition to any reference library.
Excellent Introduction to Musical Acoustics 2006-11-30
This book is an excellent introduction to the topic. Benade explains the subject assuming that the reader has no background in science (good for musicians) and no background in music (good for scientists). He writes the book as if he's translating a mathematical proof into plain English. Benade starts from scratch (even the notion of pitch is considered alien) and builds wonderfully intuitive understandings. Yes, this is an old book, so if you are NOT new to this field (and not afraid of math) then you'd be more interested in one of the Rossing books. But on the plus side, because the book was written before Benade had access to modern laboratory techniques, the "experiments" described in the book are all simple to understand and can be done at home. Unlike the Rossing books (which I also highly recommend), Benade's book does not read like a textbook or a reference source. It is very easy-to-read, so you can actually benefit from just sitting down and reading it (though Benade does provide problems at the end of the chapter for the dedicated reader).
In response to one of the unfavorable reviews posted, I do not find any fault with Benade when he states (p. 66) that "lopping off the higher frequency ... harmonics does not alter the perceived pitch of the sound." In fact, this statement comes right after an in-depth explanation of how the higher frequency partials DETERMINE the pitch for INHARMONIC sounds (e.g. chimes and bells). Perhaps the reviewer was confused by Benade's terminology. As explained on p. 63, Benade uses the word "partial" generically to describe higher frequency components. Benade reserves the term "harmonics" for partials that have whole-number relationships.
I wouldn't use this work as a college textbook, but I would certainly add it to the students' list of additional recommended references.
An Outstanding Book, Designed to Make You Think 2004-08-03
While Benade's first book, "Horns Strings and Harmony", has some errors which he himself later acknowledged, "Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics" is one of the seminal books in the field. That doesn't mean that it is perfect in every respect, but it introduces a broad range of concepts in musical acoustics without the use of advanced mathematics, in a writing style that will appeal to the musician in addition to the scientist. The fine details of his theories regarding psychoacoustics, particularly pitch perception, have been challenged. But his general concepts are well accepted, and he presents them in a way that makes the reader think. His descriptions of experimental techniques (which generally aren't very complicated) have inspired me and others to repeat his experiments. Sometimes, results don't agree - that's when you have to think. Psychoacoustics relies on neurology and psychology, two sciences that, despite much brilliant work over the last 100 years, are still in their infancy. So, you can't judge his theories on psychoacoustics in the same light as his description of wave propagation, room modes, and perturbation functions in clarinets.
As a musician and an engineer, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in how music and physics intersect. This is not the book to answer all your questions - it is the book to get you started on asking the right questions.
Misleading and completely worthless book 
2002-05-28
I bought this book ...in hope to get some help in explaining basics of musical acoustics to my college-age kids in a systematic, organized manner. What a disappointment!
In page 56 the author lists "Measured Values of Components of a Set of Guitar Strings".
One would expect a discussion about string inharmonicity as an explanation why partials of different strings have different frequencies while having the same fundamental' frequency. An utterly important and well known phenomenon is "responsible" for correct musical instruments recognition and perception is completely avoided in the text. Moreover, in the page 66 we found that "It is easy to verify ... that lopping off the higher frequency members of ...harmonics does not alter the perceived pitch of the sound". This statement is simply wrong: it is an established fact that the spectrum of the sound DOES affect the perceived pith. On the page 194 another treasure left me wondering what the author meant by "Compact, small, solid objects act somewhat as new sources of sound that originate new impulses of modified shape whenever an impulse is incident upon them". Here's more of the same amusing kind on the page 574:
"Brass instruments, particularly French horns, often "talk" to one another, so that the sound radiated by one of them enters the bell of its neighbor and thence joins in at the player's lips to influence the regime of oscillation." Tell this to a brass player!
There're glowing phrase on the back cover of this book by Audio Amateur, American Scientist, Physics Today and Stereo Review. While the first and the last - now extinct - publications can be "forgiven" as being amateur indeed, the American Scientist's and Physics' credibility is drastically diminished in my eyes; it's hard for me to believe those magazines fell for this misleading and in many cases simply wrong, book.
As a whole, this Mr. Benade' creation is anything but "a landmark book in its field, hailed for its astonishingly clear, delightfully readable statement of everything of acoustical importance..." as stated on the back; rather this book is nothing more that a pathetic waste of paper.
Benade is One of the Greats in This field 2000-12-31
Landmark book by leading expert, hailed for its astonishingly clear, delightfully readable explication of everything acoustical important to music-making. "Comprehensive . . . rigorous . . . well-organized . . . will surely be the text of choice." — American Scientist. "Recommended for music lovers and audiophiles" — Stereo Review. Over 300 illustrations. Examples, experiments, and questions conclude each chapter.
Reasonably informative without much technical info 
2000-10-06
This book, like practically all Dover science books, is a reprinted old book that does not incorporate any of the recent research in acoustics. For example, much research on acoustics as related to the design of a theatre is not in here. However, if you have a good grasp of fundamental physics (say, you took some good college physics classes but it has been quite a few years back), and now you just want to see how the physics you learned apply to the making of musical instruments, this book provides a nice overview.
Very outdated 
2000-10-01
Of historical interest only, this book never was a comprehensive overview of musical acoustics, instead focusing on Benade's interests. Now, it is horribly outdated. Much interesting work is not in here...in fact there is no really top notch acoustics book with modern research available at this time.
An excellent introductory book without too much mathematics 
1998-12-01
In my opinion, a wonderful work that introduces the principles of waves and vibrations, musical perception and instrument physics without too much mathematics. Specific chapters on violin, piano, clavicord and harpsichord, winds (brass and wood). Several references to guitar. The book is a little old, which shows in the references, but is an excellent text for self study. Most chapters have at the end a list of interesting experiments that one can perform. Overall a must first book if you are interested in the field.
A great book! A must for instrument makers. 1997-10-13
I think this book has taught me more about the instrument I make (uilleann bagpipes) and it does not even mention it. When it says fundamentals in its title it means it. you will get to the bottom of why instruments work in thye way they do and so improve yuor own acoustical design.
