Musical Instruments/Build a Band
For this project we used information we learned about sound waves and vibration to help us build instruments. We built a wooden ukulele, a flute made out of PVC pipe, and glass chimes. Our instruments had to play C,D,E,F,G,A and B. We also had to write a song that we could play our instruments to. Our song was written about pressure to the tune of the song, "Uptown Funk". Information about our instruments are below
Reflection
This was a very successful project for me and my group. All of our instruments ended up working very well and I was very proud of them. Our time management was very good and we all used our skills in different ways to create some very good sounding instruments.
Stem Instruments
The Flute-
The Flute works by blowing down and the the mouthpiece and air splits to create the waves frequency. The different holes make it so the air can or can’t come out depending if they are covered or not. If the hole is covered it makes it so the frequency goes lower because the waves have less space to go in and it creates the frequency to go higher. This is what affects the instrument to make all of the different notes.This relationship between wavelength and length only works in the first harmonic of a close-ended air column. This is how we calculate our ¼ wavelength Mouth side is closed and thus has high pressure (compression) open end has neutral atm. pressure. this is ¼ of the total wavelengths from compress to neutral to rare to neutral to compression.
Water Chimes-
We started with many different ideas for our chime instrument. We decided to take a more diverse route and chose to make water based chimes. The water chimes work by creating a different note for each different bottle. We used 8 16 oz bottles, each are filled with different amounts to create different notes. The more water in the bottle creates a lower pitched noise. With less water, the bottles create a higher pitched noise. This is because if the bottle is more filled up, there becomes less room for the sound waves to vibrate. With less space in the bottle, a lower pitched noise is produced. This is because there is less space for the sound waves to vibrate. Our chimes play F, A, B, C, D, E, F. Each bottle has less water than the previous to get the desires notes. we calculated the notes by measuring the tune using various phone apps and calculations.
Ukulele-
Our ukulele consists of two kinds of wood that create the base. The first wood we used was a cabinet wood that was very strong and hard. We also used this wood because it resonated nicely. The other wood we used was particle wood. We used this because it was the easiest to cut and shape. Our ukulele also has four different strings that play the notes G C E A. You can create other notes by pressing down on the fretboard. The lower your finger moves on the fretboard the higher the note. At first we were going to do a traditional uke, but we had a speaker come in to talk to us about ukuleles that he has created and he showed us a different ukulele that covered the hole and vibrated noises into the box off another piece of wood. We did this design and it worked very nicely. The vibrations from the strings goes into the sound box and goes out the back hole we created which creates sound. Why is string ½ wavelength
Note
Frequency (Hz)
Wavelength (cm)
String length (½ wavelength)
G50
24.50
1408.18
C0
16.35
2109.89
E0
20.60
1674.62
A0
27.50
1254.55