Re: [lojban] Re: marimba and xylophone and other instruments

["Chris Capel" <pdf23ds@gmail.com>]

On 1/15/07, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:
> 1. Idiophone: The instrument itself, which is not stretched, vibrates.
[...]
> The bars of a xylophone vibrate without being stretched. It is therefore an
> idiophone. They are held at the nodes of the first mode of vibration. Bells
> are also idiophones.

What is "the instrument itself"? Obviously a xylophone's stand is part
of the instrument, and yet it doesn't vibrate. With a piano, the
strings and soundboard are part of the instrument, but so is the shell
and cover and such, and those don't vibrate. So I'd say a xylophone is
really somewhere in between an idiophone and a "block"ophone.

> {pipno} covers both pianos and organs, which have nothing in common except the
> keyboard and the mapping of keys to notes. Since a xylophone has the same
> arrangement of bars as a piano does of keys, I think it qualifies.

No opinion here.

Chris Capel
--
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