Aoyama Gakuin University
Abstract :
Sanshin is an OKINAWA’s traditional musical string
instrument.
Generally, the sound board is one of the main factors
on the
string instrument’s tone from the acoustical points of
view.
Nevertheless, about Sanshin, the player and artisan
have
thought that Sao (Neck) has been the most important.
Sanshin
has many types of Sao and there have many
arguments of the
relationship between “Sao” and “Tone”. However, the
sound
mechanism is still not clarified. Therefore, the purpose of
this
research is to elucidate the sound mechanism of
Sanshin which
include the influence of Sao.
We measured the Sanshin’s tone using different types of
SAO
with the same body, string, and bridge. As a result, we
found the
several differences in the tones. Especially the
differences were
confirmed in the frequency distributions and the
attenuation
rates. For the understanding of these behaviors, we
focused
about the change of the thickness and length of SAO,
and the
mass damping of the head of SAO. By the cutting works
of one
wood-Sanshin, we found that the thickness and length
of SAO
influence the frequency distributions and the mass
damping
influences the attenuation rate.