Psychoacoustic findings explain musician preferences for tympani heads

Evidence

It is clear that psychoacoustics plays an important role in musical acoustics. There are many basic aspects of musical sounds that are correlated with the sensations already discussed in psychoacoustics. For example, the preference of many musicians for natural versus plastic heads of tympani is in line with the observation that plastic heads produce smaller pitch strength and more variance in the loudness of tones in different pitch regions. — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 2036

Categorization

• XREF: Connects acoustic-instrument material preferences to measurable pitch-strength and loudness variance — relevant to the trees-as-materials angle of ‘Grafting & Growth’.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 2036