Build-a-Band
For this project I worked with Isabella, Brandon, Ky, and Jack. For this project we were tasked with making our own musical instruments and writing songs. To do this, you must first understand what sound is, how we hear it, etc.
Things to Know
- wave - a wiggle in space and time. Waves transfer energy
- transverse wave - when motion of the sound's medium is at right angles to the direction the wave is traveling
- longitudinal wave - when particles move along the direction the wave is moving
- wave speed - the velocity/how fast a wave travels.Measured in meters per second. You can calculate this by multiplying a wave's length and frequency
- wave length - distance from crest to crest on a wave. A wave's crest is the highest part of it. On the other end of that, the dip in a wave is referred to as the trough. This is measured in meters.
- frequency - how often vibration occurs in a wave. This is measured in Hertz. A high frequency wave has a high velocity and a high pitch.
- period - the back and forth movement of a pendulum. If a pendulum takes 1 second to swing back and forth then it has a period of one second.
- amplitude - distance from the midpoint to crest of a wave. This is measured in meters
- interference pattern - overlapping waves
- constructive interference - when the crest of one wave overlaps with the crest of another wave, increasing the amplitude
- destructive interference - overlapping waves where the crests of one wave fill the troughs of the other, decreasing amplitude. Perfect destructive interference would result in no wave. Noise cancelling headphones utilize destructive interference to erase outside noise.
- node - the stationary part of a wave
- Doppler effect - Apparent change in frequency due to motion of the source of sound. An example of this would be a race car driving by and creating the NUUUUurrrr sound.
This project was really fun. I really like music, it's one of my favorite things. Building is not something that comes easy to me though. Even though I play in a jazz band every day, it was hard to think of what instruments to make and how. Once we got an idea, it was hard to create and later perfect them in physical form.
Eventually we did get our four instruments working well enough, and writing songs came much easier. We cranked through the writing portion pretty fast. That part was very fun. We don't have a date for our performances yet but I'm very excited for it.
Eventually we did get our four instruments working well enough, and writing songs came much easier. We cranked through the writing portion pretty fast. That part was very fun. We don't have a date for our performances yet but I'm very excited for it.