MODERN ACOUSTICS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 96, 6 April 1934, Page 8

MODERN ACOUSTICS

Studies in America The ventriloquist who could make a babe’s voice come out of au old hat. rs< prettv good in his way, but bis trick was comparatively simple when i compared with some of the exploits of i modern acoustical engineers. One of them recently set out to find i how the voire of a single board of trade member might be heard clearlv I tn a room where 199 other members were yelling a- only strong-lunged traders can. This acoustical expert. Prof. F. R. Watson of the University of Illinois, reported his results at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Chicago. First, he calculated the fondness ef

one trader’s voice, he explained. Then he figured the loudness of the group, which included not only the characteristic sounds made by excited traders but the clicking of telegraph instruments and shouts for messenger boys; and further, he computed the reenforcing effect of the ceiling and side walls. •‘The Individual traders can be ' heard,” Professor Matson reported, i "in much the same way that indiviI dual instruments ate distinguished in j an orchestra. ’ ’ Ar. Charles H. Voelker of Columbuo, ’ Ohio, wanted to find out which phonetic wundii occurred most often in American speech and the relative frequency of the different sounds. So he began by recording 5946 radio announcements on phonograph records. The records were played and replayed until the investigators wore certain as to just which sounds occurred. Each

sound was then recorded each time it occurred in phonetic symbols used for such studies. The symbols were counted—there were 665,094 of them—and relative percentages were figured. So now it can be told whether “oo” or "ah” or "ec” or some other'sound Is the most popular in American speech. What’s the use of all this? Well, that may come out in another paper nt some future session of the Acoustical Society