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Dampen?

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2013-12-03 13:43

OK, somewhat silly or at least trivial topic, but I'm curious.

I read over and over here about how this or that ligature or barrel "dampens" the sound. I learned as a student long time ago that suppressing parts of a sound wave in any way "damps" the sound, so a ligature may well damp the tone (or the higher frequency parts of it), but it doesn't make the sound wetter (by making it more damp, or dampening it).

Are these in effect two different verbs, "to damp" and "to dampen," or is "dampen" a correct term in acoustics? Trouble is, my spell checker doesn't flag either, since it isn't contextually sensitive. I did look the words up in an old (paper) unabridged Webster's I still own, and the definitions there are a little ambiguous, although the only one that carries a specific acoustical (or electrical) meaning is "damp" used as a verb.

Are both terms correct as applied to sound, or is "dampen" misused in an acoustical context?

Karl

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Dampen?

kdk

2013-12-03 13:43