Build a band / Musical instuments
For the past few weeks, we have been working on building instruments that we could play. Our task was to build a wind, chime and string instrument. Our group built the chimes, a pan flute and also a ukulele.
Chimes:
We decided to go with an instrument that seemed relatively easy to play: pipe xylophone. Xylophones were invented in ancient Asia and consists of eight to twelve pipes of increasing length. For our instrument we decided to use eight. For normal chime instruments the length of the starting pipe is what matters, the rest of the pipes’ lengths are based off of the longest pipe. For the next octave, the next pipe has to be 1.41 (root two) times shorter.
The xylophone is played by striking directly on the pipe with a mallet. This makes the metal pipe vibrate at a certain frequency, which creates compression and rarefaction in the air. When the metal vibrates out it compresses the air and when it vibrates in it rarefies the air. This makes a longitudinal wave, which we perceive as sound. Making blissful music.
Interval Pipe Length(CM) Multiply Longest Chime Length by
G5 26.0 1.0000
A5 24.5 0.9428
B5 23.25 0.8944
C5 22.5 0.8660 sqrt(3)/2
D5 21.2 0.8165
E5 20.1 0.7746
F5 19.0 0.7303
G6 18.4 0.7071 sqrt(2)/2
Wind:
We decided to go with an instrument that seemed relatively easy to play: the panflute. Panflutes were invented in ancient Greece and consist of five to ten pipes of increasing length. For our instrument we decided to use eight. This allows us to play a full octatonic scale. (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A)
The pan flute is played by blowing horizontally across the open end against the inner edge of the pipes. This creates rarefaction at the top due to the bernoulli principle, and compression at the bottom due to the increase of air in the pipe. This difference of pressure creates a longitudinal sound wave. This wave completes half of a cycle inside the pipe, and thus has a wavelength of twice the length of the pipe. The longitudinal wave then exits the pipe and hits your eardrums, making blissful music.
NOTE FREQUENCY(HZ) WAVELENGTH(CM) PIPE LENGTH(CM)
A5 880.0 39.2 19.6
B5 987.8 35.0 17.5
C6 1046.5 33.0 16.5
D6 1176.66 29.4 14.7
E6 1318.5 26.2 13.1
F6 1396.9 24.7 12.35
G6 1568.1 22.0 11.0
A6 1760.0 19.6 9.8
String:
Our string design is very simple, yet effective. It’s made from 3 different materials: wood, screws, and fishing wire. There is one long strip of wood that makes up the base. On one end of it, there is a smaller piece of wood, with eight screws side by side. On the other side, there are eight screws screwed directly into the base.
What makes the sound on a string instrument is the vibration of the strings. The pitch (frequency) depends on how fast the strings are vibrating. If the string is bigger, it will vibrate much slower than it would if it were smaller. That is how most string instruments work. They are made with strings of different thicknesses, to give the instrument a good range of pitch. In our case, since we only had one size fishing wire, we did it based off of tension. If the strings are tighter, they can’t move as far, so they will vibrate back and forth faster.
On the side of our instrument with the extra piece of wood, we just tied the fishing wire to the screws. On the side with the screws directly drilled into the base, we wrapped the other side of the wire in the threads of the screws. This way, we were able to change the tension that each piece of fishing wire had, giving it a range of frequency. Making blissful music.Chimes:
We decided to go with an instrument that seemed relatively easy to play: pipe xylophone. Xylophones were invented in ancient Asia and consists of eight to twelve pipes of increasing length. For our instrument we decided to use eight. For normal chime instruments the length of the starting pipe is what matters, the rest of the pipes’ lengths are based off of the longest pipe. For the next octave, the next pipe has to be 1.41 (root two) times shorter.
The xylophone is played by striking directly on the pipe with a mallet. This makes the metal pipe vibrate at a certain frequency, which creates compression and rarefaction in the air. When the metal vibrates out it compresses the air and when it vibrates in it rarefies the air. This makes a longitudinal wave, which we perceive as sound. Making blissful music.
Wind:
We decided to go with an instrument that seemed relatively easy to play: the pan flute. Pan flutes were invented in ancient Greece and consist of five to ten pipes of increasing length. For our instrument we decided to use eight. This allows us to play a full octatonic scale. (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A)
The pan flute is played by blowing horizontally across the open end against the inner edge of the pipes. This creates rarefaction at the top due to the Bernoulli Principle, and compression at the bottom due to the increase of air in the pipe. This difference of pressure creates a longitudinal sound wave. This wave completes half of a cycle inside the pipe, and thus has a wavelength of twice the length of the pipe. The longitudinal wave then exits the pipe and hits your eardrums, making blissful music.
NOTE FREQUENCY(HZ) WAVELENGTH(CM) PIPE LENGTH(CM)
A5 880.0 39.2 19.6
B5 987.8 35.0 17.5
C6 1046.5 33.0 16.5
D6 1176.66 29.4 14.7
E6 1318.5 26.2 13.1
F6 1396.9 24.7 12.35
G6 1568.1 22.0 11.0
A6 1760.0 19.6 9.8
String:
Our string design is very simple, yet effective. It’s made from 3 different materials: wood, screws, and fishing wire. There is one long strip of wood that makes up the base. On one end of it, there is a smaller piece of wood, with eight screws side by side. On the other side, there are eight screws screwed directly into the base.
What makes the sound on a string instrument is the vibration of the strings. The pitch (frequency) depends on how fast the strings are vibrating. If the string is bigger, it will vibrate much slower than it would if it were smaller. That is how most string instruments work. They are made with strings of different thicknesses, to give the instrument a good range of pitch. In our case, since we only had one size fishing wire, we did it based off of tension. If the strings are tighter, they can’t move as far, so they will vibrate back and forth faster.
On the side of our instrument with the extra piece of wood, we just tied the fishing wire to the screws. On the side with the screws directly drilled into the base, we wrapped the other side of the wire in the threads of the screws. This way, we were able to change the tension that each piece of fishing wire had, giving it a range of frequency. Making blissful music.
The notes on our instruments were made by tightening our strings to to different
concepts
Some of the concepts include:
transverse wave- the medium motion that occurs perpendicular to the direction in which a wave travels
longitudinal wave- when displacement of the medium is in the same direction as the wave
constructive interference- when the crest of one wave overlaps the crest of another, their individual effects add together
destructive interference- when the crest of one wave overlaps the trough of another; their individual effects are reduced and they cancel each other out
Doppler effect- the apparent change in frequency due to the motion of the source
wave- a wiggle in space and time
wavelength- the distance from the top of one crest to the top of the next crest
amplitude- the distance from the mid point to the crest of the wave
frequency- how often vibrations occur
period- is time required to complete one cycle
transverse wave- the medium motion that occurs perpendicular to the direction in which a wave travels
longitudinal wave- when displacement of the medium is in the same direction as the wave
constructive interference- when the crest of one wave overlaps the crest of another, their individual effects add together
destructive interference- when the crest of one wave overlaps the trough of another; their individual effects are reduced and they cancel each other out
Doppler effect- the apparent change in frequency due to the motion of the source
wave- a wiggle in space and time
wavelength- the distance from the top of one crest to the top of the next crest
amplitude- the distance from the mid point to the crest of the wave
frequency- how often vibrations occur
period- is time required to complete one cycle
Reflection
This project was one of the most interesting projects to me. I feel like I learn a lot from this one project, lots about how waves worked and also many concepts. There were also many ups and downs during the making of the instruments. When we started off, we were doing really well with planning and brainstorming ideas that we could use for the three instruments, but after a while, we had many ideas but we couldn't choose which three to choose. A down was when we were working together, one of us had an idea but the other one helping didn't understand it, we would have to spend the time to explain to him/her what our goal was for that instrument. Our 2nd most time consuming down was when we couldn't get the notes quite right for the ukulele. A few of us had to stay in after class to finish fine tuning the sound so that each not played correctly. I learned many things from this build a band project, and really enjoyed this one. The project overall came out really well and we were really creative with the song. I learned a lot.