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Obituary | Norman C. Pickering | 1916-2015
Norman was born on July 9, 1916, in Brooklyn, NY, where he attended school through high school. His love for music was kindled early by his mother at whose side, at the piano, he learned to read music. At the in- sistence of his father he studied engineering. Early in life, he set his heart on becoming a violinist and began playing at age 7, but
an accident in his youth shattered that dream. However, his aspirations were not totally denied. With a degree in engi- neering from the Newark College of Engineering (later the New Jersey Institute of Technology) in 1936, he entered Juil- liard with a scholarship and honed his skills as a horn player to the point that he was hired by the newly formed India- napolis Symphony. Later, he continued to play as a profes- sional, freelancing in New York. Norman is survived by his wife, Barbara Goldowsky, an accomplished writer and poet, whom he married in 1979; children from previous marriag- es: a daughter, Judith Crow, and three sons, David, Fredrick, and Rolf; two stepsons, Alexander and Boris Goldowsky; and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Norman is the textbook example of the modern Renais- sance man. His varied career includes working for C. G. Conn (now Conn-Selmer), a leading manufacturer of musi- cal instruments in Elkhart, IN, where he helped to design mostly brass instruments including a very successful French horn model. During the war, Norman worked for the Sperry Gyroscope Company that had converted the Conn plant to produce aircraft instrumentation. His efforts eventually led to vibration control designs in Boeing 707s and 747s. In 1948, he was one of the founders of the Audio Engineering Society, which grew into an international organization. In 1949-1950, he did graduate work in acoustics under Harvey Fletcher at Columbia University. While working in a labo- ratory at Southampton Hospital, Norman developed instru- mentation for ultrasound diagnostic techniques in eye ex-
aminations. In 1980, he returned to his first love, the violin. He served as president of the Violin Society of America, con- ducted research on the tone quality of bowed string instru- ments, and did consulting work for the “D’Addario” com- pany, a prominent manufacturer primarily of guitar strings. In the course of his research, he built numerous violins and violas. He was particularly proud of his mechanized bow- ing machine, which made consistent research on bow-string interactions possible.
The development of the “Pickering cartridge,” however, will likely be remembered by the world of music as his most sig- nificant contribution. Motivated originally by the poor tone quality of professional recordings and broadcasts, he re- placed steel needle pickups with lighter and harder materials with a diamond tip. The reduction in record wear, accom- panied by an increased electronic response, led to an unex- pected consumer demand for a product that originally was designed for professional use. At its peak, his manufacturing company employed over 150 people.
Among Norman’s many awards are recognition as a Fellow by the Audio Engineering Society and the Acoustical Society of America; special awards from the Violin Society of Amer- ica, the Audio Engineering Society, and the Catgut Acous- tical Society; and an Honorary Doctor of Science from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Selected Articles by Norman C. Pickering
Pickering, N. C. (1980). Results of mechanical bowing tests. Journal of the Violin Society of America 6, 59-64.
Pickering, N. C. (1983). Anomalies in the frequency-length function in vio- lin strings. Journal of the Audio Engineering Society 31, 145-150.
Pickering, N. C. (1985). Physical properties of violin strings. Journal of the Catgut Acoustical Society 44, 6-8.
Pickering, N. C. (2003). The Violin World. Keener’s East End Litho, Inc., East Hampton, NY.
Written by:
Uwe J. Hansen, Email: uwe.hansen@indstate.edu Indiana State University
Summer 2016 | Acoustics Today | 57