Drum

The sound is lower because the wavelengths are longer.

To amplify the notes that the drum creates is the barrel of the bucket. This helps with
amplification because the sound waves bounce back and forth from each wall. We discovered
that when we hit the edge of the drum with different spots on the pipe, it creates different notes.
This is because of the vibrations of the pipe. The lower I tap the pipe on the edge of the drum,
the more muted the sound is. The drum head makes the same sound no matter where on the
drum I hit or how low I hold the pipe. It is very difficult to find specific notes on our drum because
the tightness on the head of drum gets looser and looser every time we hit it. We have no way
of tightening it each time so the notes change each time we play the head of the drum. The way
we found all our different notes was from the pipe and hitting it on the edge of the drum. We
discovered that creating a full scale of notes required a lot of tweaking on our part, we continued
to tighten and re-adjust our drum until we obtained our desired sound. We decided to tightly
wrap a simple t-shirt around a plastic bucket. We found the results of this were not what we
desired, so we added paint to stiffen the shirt, which resulted in a higher quality sound. If the
shirt was tighter around the bucket, then the drum would make a higher note and cause more
vibrations per second increasing the frequency. If the shirt was looser, then the drum would
make a lower more muted note and would decrease the vibrations per second and have a lower
frequency.
Note Frequency Wavelength

A4 224.2 Hz ~ 1.557 meters

B4 1008.2 Hz ~ 0.344 meters

C4 293.9 Hz ~ 1.167 meters

D4 75.8 Hz ~ 4.69 meters

E4 331.2 Hz ~ 1.039 meters

F4 96.5 Hz ~ 3.499 meters

G4 418.9 Hz ~ 0.856 meters

Guitar
Sound is produced when the strings on the guitar vibrate. The different length strings create
different frequencies and notes. The shorter and tighter strings produce high frequencies or high
notes. Some examples would be A4 or B4. The longer, looser strings create lower frequencies
and notes like C4 or D4. The string length should be half of the wavelength to produce one of
the notes because string instruments produce a standing wave which is half a wavelength. On
our guitar, we had seven different strings that created seven different notes (A4, B4, C4, D4, E4,
F4, G4). We used a tennis racket as the base of the instrument. For amplification, we used
cardboard and wood to make a box for the vibrations to bounce off of.

Note Frequency Wavelength Half of Wavelength

A 440 Hz 74.41 cm 39.21 cm

B 493.88 Hz 69.85 cm 34.93 cm

C 261.63 Hz 131.87 cm 65.93 cm

D 293.66 Hz 117.48 cm 58.74 cm

E 329.63 Hz 104.66 cm 52.33 cm

F 349.23 Hz 98.79 cm 49.39 cm

G 392 Hz 88.01 cm 44 cm

Flute
Our group created the flute using PVC pipe and cutting holes in the pipe to make different
notes.
Produce sound by vibrating columns inside the pipe
Length of pipes affects the pitch
Ex: longer pipe produces deeper pitch,
Shorter pipe produces higher pitch.
In order to produce a proper scale, you must
Position the location of each air hole particularly
Keeping in mind the specific notes you are
Trying to produce. It was crucial for us the add a hole by our mouthpiece, in order to allow
The air to bounce off the edges of our flute and produce a sound. To insure the top of the
Flute to produce a sound, we had to put a cork in the top, which blocked any possible air flow,
other than the gap we blow through. This air cannal then sends our desired air through the rest
of the flute, splitting the air so that some goes high pressure and some goes low pressure,
creating amplified resinence. We played with the building process until we acquired our desired
scale which was the scale of G.
`

Distance from top (cm)

Note 1 19.2cm 1cm wide Note 5 30.5cm 1cm

Note 2 21.9cm 1cm wide Note 6 33.7cm 0.6cm

Note 3 24.9cm 1cm wide

Note 4 28.2cm 0.6cm

wide

What are the physics behind a recorder?

When the first hole recieves an impulse, passes it on to the next hole and so on until it hits the
bottom. The bottom recieves it and sends it back and so creates resonence. The spacing in the
holes matter only for the scale and do not have to do much with resonince.