Most combinations of musical tones are perceived as either "consonant," "pleasing" to the human ear, or "dissonant," which is "not pleasing." Despite being largely subjective in nature, sensations of consonance and dissonance can be quantified and then compared to the judgments of human subjects. The…

Throughout a general education course on sound and light aimed at music and art students, analogies between subjective perceptions of objective properties of sound and light waves are a recurring theme. Demonstrating that the pitch and loudness of musical sounds are related to the frequency and intensity of a sound wave is simple and students are…

The effects of the mouthpiece and bell on the frequencies of the vibrating air column in a trombone can be demonstrated quite readily by first calculating the expected resonant frequencies of a piece of PVC pipe that is the same length as a trombone, then replacing portions of the PVC pipe of the same length with first a cup-shaped mouthpiece and…

What follows is a description of a demonstration of superposition of waves and Fourier analysis using a set of four tuning forks mounted on resonance boxes and oscilloscope software to create, capture and analyze the waveforms and Fourier spectra of musical intervals.

What follows is a description of a theoretical model designed to calculate the playing frequencies of the musical pitches produced by a trombone. The model is based on quantitative treatments that demonstrate the effects of the flaring bell and cup-shaped mouthpiece sections on these frequencies and can be used to calculate frequencies that…

What follows is an alternative to the standard tuning fork and quarter-wave tube speed of sound experiment. Rather than adjusting the water level in a glass or plastic tube to vary the length of an air column, a set of resonance tubes of different lengths is used. The experiment still demonstrates the principles of standing waves in air columns…

Use of a microphone attached to a computer to capture musical sounds and software to display their waveforms and harmonic spectra has become somewhat commonplace. A recent article in "The Physics Teacher" aptly demonstrated the use of MacScope in just such a manner as a way to teach Fourier analysis. A logical continuation of this project is to…

What follows is a description of a simple experiment developed in a non-mathematical general education science course on sound and light for fine arts students in which a guitar is used with data collection hardware and software to verify the properties of standing waves on a string.

Describes experiments to address the properties of brass musical instruments that can be used to demonstrate sound in any level physics course. The experiments demonstrate in a quantitative fashion the effects of the mouthpiece and bell on the frequencies of sound waves and thus the musical pitches produced. (Author/NB)