Musical machine aids acoustics student

A University student has designed a machine that plays the violin.

To some, this achievement may raise philosophical questions. If a machine can play the violin, what is next? Does the machine think, or feel the notes it plays through every fiber of its being? Has the boundary between humanity and machine been blurred?

These people have not heard Lily Wang's machine play the violin.

As Wang compiles research from that machine, measuring exactly where on the violin different sounds come from, she wears ear plugs. After all, she has been hearing the same four basic notes, played over and over again, for more than two years.

When her research is complete in August, Wang said she hopes to have mapped out exactly where each violin sound comes from. She has placed microphones on all sides of the instrument, measuring the sounds and sending them through a computer.

Wang uses three borrowed violins for her research -- two handmade, one rented from a local music store.

"I don't even play the violin," she said. Instead, she has played the piano and sung since she was four years old.

Wang said her research is the type many acoustics students dream of, but few have the opportunity to do. Most students study acoustics because of a love of music, but musical acoustics is not as well-funded as other areas, Wang said.

"(Her project) pulls a lot of theory into what motivates most people in the department," said Tad Rollow (graduate-acoustics), who is working on a research project in which he alters the sound quality of timpani drums.

"It's an unusual opportunity," he said of Wang's work.

Wang said she has been lucky to get funding to work in the field she loves. She was awarded a National Science Foundation fellowship, and when that expired, she won another fellowship from the American Association of University Women. In August, she will study in Denmark on a Hunt Fellowship.

That's not the only help she has gotten. Machinists from her place of work, the Water Tunnel Building on North Atherton Street, helped her build the project.

"That we even have this machine is quite a feat," she said.

Wang began the project in 1994 with the help of adviser Courtney Burroughs, associate professor of acoustics.

Wang said the research could help violin makers understand what parts of the violin are essential. She and Burroughs suspect that the most significant parts, those that affect the violin's sound the most, are the bridge, the sides and the F-holes, which are long, curling slits in the front of the violin.

With this information, top violin makers may eventually be able to create better violins or build them using different materials, Burroughs said.

"She's taking the state of the art forward," Rollow said.