Acoustics: Sound Creation & Propagation
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This lesson is part of the Fundamentals of Sound & Music module. |
Objectives
- Student will understand the basic nature of sound as vibration and how it propagates through a medium.
- Student will understand the concepts of frequency/amplitude and how they relate to pitch, loudness, and the media through which sounds travel.
- Student will be able to describe sound based on a visual representation on a spectrogram, time-frequency graph, or oscilloscope trace.
- Student will identify the basic components of musical sound: pitch (melody vs. harmony), texture, rhythm/meter (duration), timbre.
Resources
Readings
- Music Tech Musician: Lesson 2 on Physics of Sound
- UCSC Electronic Music Studios: Sound
- NDT Resource Center: Sound
Listening or Videos
- Project Studio Handbook: Waveform Diagrams
- Project Studio Handbook: Waveform Diagram Frequency and Amplitude
Tools
- Chrome Music Lab: Spectrogram
- Chrome Music Lab: Sound Waves
- Academo Virtual Oscilloscope
- Szynalski Online Tone Generator
- (Software) Audacity
Class Activities
- Discussion and definition of the physical properties of sound and how it is created
- Play sine waves at different frequencies: discuss frequency, pitch, period, amplitude (show on spectrograms/oscilloscopes)
- Play different sounds/instruments on spectrogram, oscilloscope, and time/frequency graph: compare and contrast
- Discussion of vibration, frequency, and tension using strings demonstration
Assignments
Files:
- Acoustics and Hearing Worksheet
Assessments
- Reading comprehension questions