Risonanze, ovvero piccola passeggiata in compagnia delle onde stazionarie

This chapter is devoted to a discussion of the role played by physical effects - such as standing-wave generation and the ensuing resonances which occur in acoustic resonators - on musical forms and on the design of novel, non-conventional sound generators or musical instruments. The first Section hosts a brief historical survey of the cross-fertilization between musical forms and environmental acoustics, focusing on examples which show the relation always existing between the two disciplines along the centuries. An account of the increasingly prominent role of the surrounding environment on the new musical forms explored by some contemporary musicians is given. In the second Section, the novel area of ultra-miniaturized music instruments is reviewed. The recent great advances in science and technology of the nano-world make it possible to conceive, design and fabricate harmonic or quasi-harmonic sound generators on the sub-micrometer scale. These micro- or nano-musical instruments follow the same physical laws which drive the performance of macroscopic classical instruments, although their response critically depends on the scaling down of their physical dimensions.