Physics of an Acoustic Guitar
I have been watching my husband play the guitar in a band for five years and he has made it look so easy to make such beautiful music. Most guitar players have progressed with the technology of electric guitars, but when my husband picks up an acoustic guitar and starts to play a song for just me, I hear his love for me in the sounds that he produces. Imagine my surprise when a physics class conveyed to me that there was much more to his playing than I had imagined.
The sound that a guitar makes is easily recognizable to many people because the physics of the acoustic guitar is mostly universal. The noticeable distinctions are the result of various wavelengths and the harmonics that are created by the sounds of the strings on the guitar. The different sizes, tension, and lengths of the strings control these wavelengths. Even by the various guitar body compositions affect the sounds that we hear.
An acoustic guitar has 6 strings that are attached to the top, called the head, and continue down the neck of the guitar to a plate on the body, called the bridge. One end of the string lays on a raised bar on the head of the guitar, called a nut, and the other end lays on a raised bar on the bridge of the guitar, called a saddle.1 Strumming a string on the guitar, either with a pick or with your fingers, causes it to vibrate. These vibrations are waves and they “travel in both directions along the string and reflect back and forth from the fixed ends.”2 As the waves pass through each other from end to end, they create the different harmonics or overtones that are unique to the sound of the guitar.
A node is present on a wave when the string is in its original position. Therefore, where the ...
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... Harcourt College Publishers, Orlando, 2001, p. 366.
6 Marshall Brain, “How Acoustic Guitars Work,” Howstuffworks, March 18, 2003, <http://people.howtuffworks.com/guitar.html> (1998-2003).
7 Kelly Hensley, Manager and Lead Guitar Player for Ace High Band, Interview by author, April 4, 2003.
8 Sam Hokin, “The Guitar,” The Physics of Everyday Stuff, by Sam Hokin, March 18, 2003, <http://www.bsharp.org/physics/stuff/guitar.html> (February 6, 2002).
9 Kelly Hensley, Manager and Lead Guitar Player for Ace High Band, Interview by author, April 4, 2003.
10 Marshall Brain, “How Acoustic Guitars Work,” Howstuffworks, March 18, 2003, <http://people.howtuffworks.com/guitar.html> (1998-2003).
11 Joe Wolfe, “How does a guitar work?” Research in Guitar Acoustics, March 24, 2003, <http://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/music/guitar/intro_engl.html> (1997-2002).
Paula Lieder is a high school English teacher, and in her classroom while teaching this novel, she leads the class in discussions about racism and slavery. Lieder says that when reading this book “the discussion of race and prejudice must occur.” Her class also discusses the controversy of the book and the use of the word “nigger” (Lieder). When reading this novel students may ask themselves questions about the use of the word “nigger” and how it affects the book like Holbrook did. It’s obvious that Mark Twain was a good writer, and he knew what he was writing. So why would he use the word “nigger” repeatedly? (“Huckleberry Finn”) Holbrook would say it’s because Twain wants the reader to feel disgusted and upset. In order for Twain to get his readers to understand the hurtful nature of this word, he hit them with it over and over (“Huckleberry Finn”). Huckleberry Finn also stirs students’ imaginations while presenting information about human nature. Leo Marx says in Sharon Rush’s article,
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...nal Public Radio: News and Analysis, World, US, Music and Arts. 31 March 2010. Web. 31 January 2011.
The Helmholtz resonance of a guitar is due to the air at the sound hole oscillating, driven by the springiness of the air inside the body. This is analysed quantitatively in Helmholtz Resonance.
The Alto Saxophone is a single-reed musical instrument that was invented in 1846 by Antoine-Joseph (Adolphe) Sax. Adolphe Sax was born on November 6, 1814 in Dinant, Belgium. During his childhood, he studied the clarinet and flute at Brussel’s Conservatory. His father was a renowned maker of musical instruments during that time. Since Adolphe grew up with his father making instruments and studying the clarinet and the flute, it was obvious that he would end up following in his father’s footsteps. The first instrument that Adolphe decided to look at was the bass clarinet; he wanted to improve the tone of the instrument. He came up with a single-reed instrument constructed from metal that had a conical bore and overblew at the octave, which translates to the saxophone.
A lot of people want to know about the writing of Mark Twain. Mark Twain’s writings are widely known around the world. ” English teachers are always saying that Mark Twain is the greatest author in American literature.” Stated Dr. Engel in his lecture called “The Genius of Mark Twain.” Mark Twain has been criticized a lot by people about his writings. Especially his novel called The Adventures of huckleberry Finn. The only reason he received as much criticism as he did for that novel was because one specific word. That word is powerful too. This word can be used by one person in the wrong way and shut down a community, a family, and maybe even a life. That word is the word “nigger.” We are not even going to get into that subject right now because that is not what we are here to talk about. People always
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an incredible novel. It is hard to believe that people would protest against it, but they do. Mark Twain set his story twenty years before the Civil War, during the slave era. It is written just as everyone spoke at that time, using the word “nigger.” This book uses the word a lot, which has upset many African-Americans. I believe that the word can be obscene, but in this book it is not. It only shows the reality of that time.
... his guitars. “Clapton’s rich, precise guitar work showed why he is worth seeing anytime, anywhere” (Fricke 2).
Before you can understand the physics of playing the guitar, you must first know the brief history of it. The guitars’ history can be traced back to over 4,000 years ago. This ancient instrument has many theories on how it came to be. The theory with the most evidence states that the guitar was a development from a Greek 4-stringed instrument, and then altered by the Romans to be called the cithara. Soon after, this cithara was then brought to Portugal and Spain where it was changed yet again to an instrument named the Oud. After this, it was combined with the vihuela. Throughout time, insignificant alterations where made to the vihuela. It was not until the end of the 1800’s that a man named Antonio Torres Jurado created what we known as the guitar. To start, he increased the size of the body and neck. He raised the neck and improved the fingerboard with ebony or rosewood. He replaced the tuning pegs with more efficient machine tuners. As a result, he made the guitar louder, more efficient, and he overall improved the sound (History of the Acoustic Guitar) (Guy).
If you or your child has found an interest in the acoustic guitar, you are not alone. Many people have simply fallen in love with this instrument and prefer it over the electric guitar. It is said that there is simply something more "real" about the sound being produced by nothing more that the strings, which is then project by the acoustics. However, just how does this work?
Religion is sometimes looked at from one aspect and is often challenging to describe when one is asked to. In Crossing and Dwelling by Thomas Tweed, he describes religion not only from one aspect but from multiple viewpoints. He also does so in terms of movement, relation, and position through which he uses gets across some of the main ideas of his novel. His definition of religions which are “confluences of organic-cultural flows that intensify joy and confront suffering by drawing on human and suprahuman forces to make homes and cross boundaries” was constituted from his encounter with the Cubans in Miami. Through his religious experience with the Cubans, Tweed is able to define religions and not religion from multiple aspects.
Birkenes, Adele, and Akash Bagaria. "Pay to Play." Current Events Feb 06 2012: 7. ProQuest. Web. 22 Nov. 2013.
Following the innovations of the Martin, the guitar’s evolution has reached the point of what is recognizable as the modern acoustic guitar. To this day, further innovations in guitar design are still in the works in attempts to satisfy the particular musical needs of guitarists. The most notable modern innovation would be the invention of the electric guitar. Though the electric guitar made a profound statement in American music, much of the greatness of the electric guitar should be accredited towards the refinements and innovations from its predecessors. In conclusion, the modern-day guitar can be seen as the overall achievements in guitar design throughout hundreds of years.
When guitar was first invented, it looked nothing like the guitars that we know. The first guitars were lutes. Lutes evolved into vihuelas, and later became the guitar in the fifteenth century. The first guitar was called the four-coarse guitar. It was called the four-course guitar because it only had four strings. It also had a strange tuning rather than the usual D-G-B-E tuning it was tuned to C-F-A-D which is a tone lower. Later, in the sixteenth century the five course guitar. Although the five-course is basically a four-course with an extra string, that string (low E) becomes very important in today’s style of playing. Also it had frets, frets are the lines on the guitar that make the different notes. It was believed to be invented in Spain. Early music sheets were written in tablature, similar to today.