Using mechanical modelling and experimentation for the conservation of musical instruments

Sandie Le Conte , Sylvie Le Moyne (1) , François Ollivier (2, 3) , Stéphane Vaiedelich (4)

1 IJLRDA-MPIA - Modélisation, Propagation et Imagerie Acoustique
2 GAGE - Groupe Aleph et Géode
3 DALEMBERT - Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert
4 Cité de la musique-Philharmonie, Musée de la musique, Equipe Conservation Recherche

The Musee de la musique in Paris keeps a collection of more than 4500 musical instruments. Many of them are subject to investigations aiming at improving their conservation conditions. The approach to study these cultural heritage objects is pluridisciplinary, combining material analysis, research of historical context, and mechanical aspects. This paper focuses on the application of dynamical mechanics to a case study, the restoration to playable state of a historical harpsichord. The mechanical model supported the decision for the ``best'' restoration and conservation conditions.

Keywords: Musical instrument; Conservation; Restoration; Mechanical modelling

Domains: Engineering Sciences [physics]; Acoustics [physics.class-ph]; Mechanics [physics.med-ph]; Art and art history; Biomechanics [physics.med-ph]; Acoustics [physics.class-ph]

Sandie Le Conte, Sylvie Le Moyne, François Ollivier, Stéphane Vaiedelich. Using mechanical modelling and experimentation for the conservation of musical instruments. Journal of Cultural Heritage, 2012, 13 (3), pp.S161 - S164. ⟨10.1016/j.culher.2012.04.004⟩. ⟨hal-01674965⟩