This project I have to say was by far the hardest. I personally have no musical talent, and this project would be the first time I had even touched an instrument and I was going to have to build it. The very first problem we came across was deciding what to build. Our first ideas where to build a xylophone, banjo and pan flute. The xylophone went extremely well and the first time we got it right. Our banjo and pan flute not so great. Our first problem was we forgot to measure the strings on the banjo, not a great start on our project I know. The pan flute was a whole different problem. No one could make the pan flute make any noise which is kinda the point of an instrument. So we had to start over with those two. We decided to remake our banjo out of harder material that could support the tension the strings needed. We made it out of plywood instead of card board. For our wind instrument we had to think of a whole new thing. We constructed one other instrument, a Quena, which is a traditional South African instrument that we also didn't know how to play. Finally we built our flute. We didn't know how to play it but we found someone who did and had them play it to be sure it worked. To build all of these instruments we had to look up measurements online. Most of these where very easy to find. The constructing was also very easy. the playing on the other hand, not so much.
Flute
Wind instruments require an initial vibration, caused by the mouth. There are many different wind instruments covering the various note ranges. There’s the flute, pan handle, clarinet, trombone, trumpet, French horn, and many more. For our wind instrument, we created a simple flute out of PVC piping. To make ours we looked up diagrams and measurements to construct it. We calculated spacing of the holes to give specific wavelengths, and played with hole size and shape to produce our desired sounds.Wind instruments typically contain some type of resonator where the column of air that you blow into the instrument is set into vibration. The notes are played when air is pushed down the tube and controlled by the keys, which cause different wavelengths. We drilled the six holes where they are by dividing the distance of the six notes we wanted to be able to play by four. We all have no musical talent so our flute doesn't sound as planned.
Note:
C
D
E
F
G
A
B
C
Guitar:
The guitar is one of the most popular string instruments in the world. The guitar is a part of a large group of string instruments including the ukelele, banjo, base, and violin. So for our guitar, made it out of wood, a plastic bottle, screws, and fishing wire. We calculated the length of the strings and their spacing to give us specific sounds and loudness. On the guitar, the string that vibrates to produce the sound is fixed at both ends and therefore can vibrate. Since all the strings are the same length, all 4 strings use the same range of wavelengths, although in order to produce different sound waves required, different amounts of air must be displaced at different frequencies. Since the strings are attached to the nut and bridge, when played open, or held down, have a fixed wavelength. The only factor that can be changed to produce a new frequency, is the speed of the wave. This is why the notes on a guitar sound the way they do.
Physics of a Xylophone
The xylophone is a percussion instrument made of pieces of metal that are different lengths to resonate different frequencies. Pounding on the metal with a mallet causes the impact to resonate through the bar/tube. By rebounding the mallet after striking the metal will result in longer, louder notes or sounds. For our xylophone, we hot glued together four different sized pieces of wood to make a sturdy base. We then screwed screws into the base at equal lengths apart on both sides and wove rubber bands around them. The rubber bands were there to hold the metal off of the wooden base. If we put the metal directly on the wood, the notes would be more abrupt because there would be something interrupting the sound wave.
The lengths we used for our xylophone were: ∙do: 10 1/8 inch (A) ∙so: 8 7/32 inch (E) ∙re: 9 9/16 inch (B) ∙la: 7 13/16 inch (F) ∙mi: 9 1/16 inch (C) ∙ti: 7 1/4 inch (G) ∙fa: 8 3/4 inch (D) ∙do: 7 1/16 inch (H)
We placed these pieces in order from longest to shortest to create the scale of notes.