Imaging Analysis for Drums

Our exhibit details and demonstrates the imaging project that the Freshman Imaging Science and Motion Picture Science majors have been working on in our Freshman Imaging Project class for the last two semesters. For this year's project, we have been working on completing a detailed, in-depth analysis of synthetic and natural animal skin drum heads. Our goal in doing has been to compare synthetic drumheads to natural skin drumheads, as well as to compare the features of different animal skin drumheads to one another to help predict the quality of the heads. The inspiration for our project comes from traditional Swiss Basel drums, which traditionally use animal skin drum heads because of the desire for a specific timbre. This was interesting to us because synthetic drum heads are universally used as the preferred type of drum head for both drum manufacturers and musicians because of their dependability and affordability. The main purpose of our project is to develop a deeper understanding of how the two drum head types vary, and which type, if either, produces a better sound quality. Our exhibit will provide a summary of what we have learned throughout the semester and the processes/methods we used to complete the different facets of our project. We plan to do this by creating brochures that we can hand out, as well as another form of visual media (poster, trifold, etc.). We also hope to make it interactive by running an experiment on-site in which visitors can blindly hit a synthetic drum head and an animal skin drumhead. We would then be asking them to evaluate which drumhead sounds “better” to them, whether or not they are able to identify which drumhead they are hitting, and their level of music experience. The goal would be to be able to create a set-up in which we can display the results in real time and compare it to an existing set of results that we have collected from a population of students and staff members on campus. This approach would give us an opportunity to view our project from a subjective standpoint in addition to the analytical data and observations that we have made/collected.