Introduction
Sound is a compressional wave caused by the vibration of an object. Waves can travel as transverse or compressional waves, depending on the relationship between the movement of energy and the movement of the medium; if the medium moves at a right angle to the energy, it is a transverse wave, and if it moves in the same direction as the energy, it is a compressional wave.
Figure 1- a transverse wave and a compressional wave.
Qualities of a sound
Figure 2- a transverse wave, labelled.
Sounds can be differentiated from each other through identifying its qualities, such as pitch, amplitude, speed and timbre. Pitch is able to be determined by the frequency of sound waves, and is measured in hertz (Hz). It can be seen in a soundwave by measuring the distance two corresponding points in the same soundwave, or the wavelength. Humans can detect between 20-20000 hertz; sounds with pitches below this are called subsonic, and sounds with pitches higher are called supersonic. Pitch determines the way a note sounds. Due to the way we perceive sounds, pitches around 4000 Hz sound the loudest to a normal humans ear. Amplitude is a measurement of the loudness of a sound. Amplitude can be seen in a soundwave by measuring the distance between the crest (top) and the trough (bottom) of a soundwave. Amplitude is measured in decibels, (dB), a logarithmic scale from 0-140. 0 decibels represents the faintest sound which is able to be heard by humans, and 140 represents the sounds which leads to hearing loss in a normal human being. Amplitude can be seen in a wavelength by Decibels and hertz, together, determine the total power output of a sound at a distance, in the following equation.
Power = intensity X sphere aura
The intensit...
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...ply having more strings; 88 keys with 230 keys in a grand piano, in comparison to a violin’s 4, or a guitar’s 6-12.
Pianos.
Figure 4- grand piano.
A piano is a stringed musical instrument which is operated by a series of keys, which when pressed, signals to corresponding hammer mechanisms to drop upon the string. When the hammer is lifted The vibration of the string is amplified on the soundboard and released into the air. The piano is capable of playing 7 octaves, from a range of 27.5 Hz and 4186 Hz. Pianos have its setting changed using pedals; the left pedal shifts the keyboard so that less strings are struck during each key press, the middle pedal disengages the dampeners, which normally act to stop the strings resonating when the hammers are not on the string, and the right pedal increases the dampening on strings, making the individual notes more crisp.
The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether if the sound is affected when it travels through different length pipes. The method used to do this experiment was created by using 5 different PVC pipes in the lengths of 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 centimeters. Then, using a tuning fork, sound will be produced on one end of the PVC pipe and measured with a decimeter on the other end. This experiment was recorded using 5 trials for each independent level and the average decibels (dB) for each pipe length were recorded.
Next we come to a point in time where a great leap had to be made. Musicians had made positive steps forward in the way of pitch and time but of only one or two notes at a time. What was needed was an in instrument that gave players control of many pitches simultaneously. The mechanism ...
Over an extensive amount of time, the piano has developed into what we commonly see today. Through the improvement in the production of dynamics and the development of the pedals, it has become a popular instrument that is used for a variety of genres apart from classical music, such as jazz and contemporary. There are a variety of models available, such as the grand piano, where the harpsichord and forte piano originated from, as well as the upright piano.
“Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano!” a quote from Frederic Chopin. Similar to Chopin, a copius amount of musicians utilized their instruments of choice in order to express their emotions or feelings. During the Baroque Period both the clavichord and the harpsichord reigned as the most popular keyboard instrument of choice. However, by the end of the Baroque Period the piano had replaced both keyboards as being the most popular and widely used (Verotta). The piano has been derived from the harpsichord and the clavichord which had evolved continuously through the combined effort of keyboard makers.
When it comes to classic musical instrument, piano is definitely one of the names that pop up in your mind. Indeed, after its first appearance around the year of 1700, piano has never left the stage of high culture and top class performance. Till today, three hundred years have past since it was first invented. Surely, a lot of changes have been made during this long period of evolution, the designers learnt to utilize better materials but the basic inner mechanism have stayed the same. However, the outside appearance of piano did changed a few times throughout the course of time. The first piano borrowed quite a bit of its look and design from the harpsichord because it was invented by Bartolomeo di Francesco Cristofori, an Italian harpsichord maker. (Powers, W. 2008) Namely, a noticeable amount of improvements have been made during the evolution of the instrument base on the demand of the time and arena. In this essay, stringed instruments with keyboard which are in the
Imagine going back millions of years just to hunt a dinosaur. Imagine trekking through the jungle and seeing a gigantic thirty-foot tall ten-ton beast. Shooting at it causes the dinosaur to run forward, and a little step off of the Path in fear causes a catastrophe. “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury proves that making mistakes can cost you more than you ever imagined. Looking into certain aspects of the story will help to define how mistakes came about, and how to solve them.
Ultrasound is sound waves that have a frequency above human audible. (Ultrasound Physics and Instrument 111). With a shorter wavelength than audible sound, these waves can be directed into a narrow beam that is used in imaging soft tissues. As with audible sound waves, ultrasound waves must have a medium in which to travel and are subject to interference. In addition, much like light rays, they can be reflected, refracted, and focused.
In addition, the name of the book Player Piano is another important symbol. The definition of piano player and piano player differs. A player piano is “a curious mechanical stopover on the route from manual music making to digital storage and playback” (Suisman 13). The piano player is a machine that has been programmed to make music on its own, and a piano player is a man that uses a machine to produce music. The piano player makes man existence not important.
Sounds are produced by the vibrations of material objects, and travel as a result of
The vibration of the strings of a guitar causes the sound wave, but is not actually what you are hearing. The amplification of the sound wave is what is actually heard. The differences in the tension of the stings and the mass of the strings affect the pitch of the sound produced. The ends of each string are nodes, or where the wave does not travel from its initial position. The note you hear from the string is actually the first harmonic of the wave; other harmonics created when plucking a string form the undertones and overtones of a note. The waves on a guitar string are transverse waves, meaning they travel perpendicular to the original position. The waves are also standing waves, because they remain in the same position.
The voice is our primary mean of communication and expression. We rarely last more than a few minutes without its use whether it is talking to someone else or humming quietly to ourselves. We can use the voice artistically in many ways. For example, singing carries the rhythm and melody of speech. It creates patterns of pitch, loudness, and duration that tie together syllables, phrases and sentences. We use the voice for survival, emotion, expression, and to reflect our personality. The loss of the voice is a severe curtailment to many professions. It is affected by general body condition which is why we need to consider the location of the larynx and how that organ produces voice. Surprisingly, this complex biological design is mechanical in function. It is mechanical to the point that when it has been excised from a cadaver and mounted on a laboratory bench, the larynx produces sounds resembling normal phonation. (Titze, Principles)
As a musician, I always related to sounds in terms of musical application. The only sounds I paid attention to were those involved in creating and performing music. Musical sounds were the most important to me. Well . . . actually, as a traveling musician, any troubling sounds my car made were almost as important. The only other sound I appreciated was silence - something I valued after six nights of rhythmic and melodic saturation and the babble of three hundred or so party drunks.
... middle of paper ... ... References Fletcher, N., Martin, D. and Smith, J. (2008) Musical instruments, in AccessScience, McGraw-Hill Companies, Retrieved November 25, 2011 from http://www.accessscience.com.ezproxy.hacc.edu. Henderson, T. (2011). The 'Standard'.
Speaking of how the human ear receives music, sound is produced by vibrations that transmits energy into sound waves, a form of energy in which human ears can respond to and hear. Specifically, there are two different types of sound waves. The more common of the two are the transversal waves, which ...