In our modern age of specialization, it is increasingly rare to find the kind of individual who, in another age, would have been known as a Renaissance man or a polymath. The likes of Leonardo da Vinci, recognized for his painting as well as his scientific inventions; Michelangelo, famous as a painter, architect, and poet; or Benjamin Franklin, the scientist, politician, and author, were renowned for their expertise across several disciplines \u2014 and their ability to apply their diverse knowledge to solve problems.<\/p>\n
Before completing his medical degree from the UConn School of Medicine, Robert Howe \u201982 MD had already been heading toward a life of wide curiosity and inquiry, earning dual\u00a0 undergraduate degrees in chemistry and music through a joint program between Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Music.<\/p>\n
While establishing his medical practice \u2014 today he is medical director of Maple Street Medical Group in East Longmeadow, Mass. \u2014 Howe also pursued his interest in the construction of antique woodwind instruments, particularly the oboe, which he had studied as a student. Over the past two decades, he has conducted research and published his findings in scholarly music journals such as The American Musical Instrument Society<\/em> and The Double Reed<\/em>.<\/p>\n In recent years, Howe has accelerated his interest in studying music more formally. Now a Ph.D. candidate in UConn\u2019s School of Fine Arts, he shared his ideas with his doctoral advisor, Richard Bass, professor of music theory in the Department of Music, and the two have since orchestrated an unprecedented collaborative effort between musicians and engineers at the University, using a technology typically exclusive to medical science \u2014 micro-computed tomography \u2014 to explore the makeup of 18th- and 19th-century musical instruments.<\/p>\n Printing Musical Instruments in 3-D<\/strong> Their findings were published earlier this year in academic and scientific journals and at conferences, including the Sax 200 Bicentenary Conference in Brussels in July, where Adolphe Sax, the Belgian instrument maker who invented the saxophone, was celebrated during a series of events marking the 200th anniversary of his birth.<\/p>\n \u201cThe impetus behind the study was to find a way to get better copies of the original antiques without subjecting them to any risks and subjecting the process to the errors of measurement by hand,\u201d says Howe. \u201cThe thought is that if one can take a hands-off set of measurements and then replicate the instrument directly, can one get a more accurate representation of the original? I would hope so.\u201d<\/p>\n owe and Bass have been working with Sina Shahbazmohamadi \u201913 Ph.D., who is now an assistant professor at Manhattan College in Bronx, N.Y. Shahbazmohamadi developed a new method for using micro-computed tomography to examine antique wind instruments and their parts made of wood, metal, brass, leather, and other materials.<\/p>\n The researchers are using scientific equipment at UConn\u2019s Center for Clean Energy\u00a0 Engineering to study the antique instruments, including a 1770 recorder made in London\u00a0 by Thomas Cahusac and saxophones made by Adolphe Sax. Other study instruments are a curved English horn constructed by Frederic Triebert in Paris circa 1840 and the only known wooden mouthpiece of an ophicleide \u2014 a 19th-century brass instrument similar to a tuba \u2014 made circa 1830 by Charles Sax, father of Adolphe.<\/p>\n Striking the Right Note<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"Music140821b058-final-large-1024x681\"](\"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/Music140821b058-final-large-1024x681-300x199.jpg\")
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\n Using the technology in this way for the first time is providing researchers with precise measurements to within thousandths of a millimeter for parts of antique instruments such as the saxophone and recorder. Howe and his fellow UConn researchers say their findings have resulted in the unprecedented replication of instrument parts \u2014 using 3-D printing \u2014 that could allow instruments hundreds of years old to be played once again while providing security authentication for rare instruments held by collectors and museums.<\/p>\n