Fletcher called his book "The Physics of Musical Instruments". This book discusses slightly more than physics, which includes chemistry and psychoacoustics. Hence I call it "The Science of Musical Instruments".

We will begin with two of the most familar musical instruments, i.e. violin and piano, which represent the nonlinear and the linear instruments respectively. After discussing these two instruments we will march forward to discuss percussion instruments which is a vibration problem. Afterwards, we will discuss wind instruments whose sound are generated by air flow instead of vibration.