How Musical Instruments Work

Nakul Abhyankar 08M129
Guitars are the most popular and common

instrument of the string family. The guitar
has been around for thousands of years and
is still prominent in modern music. While a
guitar is not the most complicated instrument
there still is a lot of physics behind the
process of making sound from a string. To
fully understand how a guitar works we first
need to understand what exactly sound is, so
thats where well start.
Sound is energy in the form of waves caused by vibration

Formed when air particles vibrate from the vibrating object
around them and travel in wave shapes called longitudinal
waves.
The waves are made up of areas of high pressure called
compressions and areas of low pressure called
rarefactions
WAVE LENGTH
The wave length of a sound wave is one complete cycle of the wave at
two equal successive points. (one compression and rarefaction)
AMPLITUDE
The amplitude is the height of the wave. The higher the amplitude the
louder the wave.
FREQUENCY
The frequency of a sound wave is the number of cycles that
pass a certain point in a second. Frequency is measured in
Hertz. Another way of talking about frequency is pitch. They
are basically the same thing. The higher a sounds pitch is the
higher the frequency of the wave. Pitch is usually associated
with music.
VIDEO OF DIFFERENT FREQUENCIES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igGroIcga3g&feature=related
The most important part to a guitar sound is the strings

Modern guitar strings are usually made from either nylon or steel, nickel, and
bronze.
They are stretched from the bridge of the guitar over the body and fret
board, against the nut and into the tuners (which adjusts the tension of the
strings to the desired notes).
When the guitar player plucks the strings it causes them to vibrate which
causes the air around the string to vibrate thus making a sound wave.
The frequency that a string produces is determined by the mass, length, and
tension of the string.
Heavier strings vibrate more slowly
Higher tension raises the pitch
Shorting the string raises the pitch
Strings are fixed at each end which is why they are able to vibrate.
The parts of the string that are unable to vibrate are called the
nodes. The parts where vibration is present are called antinodes.
When the string is plucked the note we hear is called the
fundamental frequency or the 1st harmonic. There are also many
other frequencies that are produced when the string is plucked.
These other frequencies are called Harmonics or Overtones.
When a string is plucked it vibrates in more than one way. The string vibrates
in many different shapes and directions which produce many different
amplitudes and frequency waves which are called harmonics.
The string can vibrate as if it was two half strings with a node in the middle
or as three third-strings and so on.
The harmonics are not regular sound waves they are called standing waves
because they do not travel.
Harmonics are what causes a guitar to sound the way it does and not just
boring simple sounds.
Good Animation:
http://id.mind.net/~zona/mstm/physics/waves/standingWaves/standingWaves1/StandingWaves1.html
BODY
If it wasnt for the body of a guitar the vibration of the strings would barely be
audible. The body of the guitar amplifies the sound of the strings so the
sound can be heard.
When the player plucks the guitars strings, the strings vibrate, which transfers
the mechanical energy down the strings to the guitars bridge which is
attached to the guitars body. When the energy is transferred to the bridge it
cause the top plate (also called the soundboard) of the body to vibrate as
well. The sound board is usually made form a thin piece of wood with
bracing on the underside to support the soundboard but this bracing also
has a significant impact on the sound the guitar makes.
BRIDGE
When the soundboard of the guitar vibrates it

causes the air inside the body of the guitar to
vibrate as well.
When the molecules of air closest to the
soundboard start vibrating they bump into the
other particles around them and they start to
vibrate and so on.
The air particles inside the body are vibrating at a
common frequency which is the sound that is
produced.
All the air inside the body of the guitar is vibrating
and this sound and vibrating air has to go
somewhere.
The sound hole is

where all the
vibrating air and
sound escapes from
the guitars body.
Which is how the
sound of the
instrument is
projected to the
listeners.
The saxophone (also referred to as the sax) is a musical

instrument that is a conical bored- transposing of
the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and
played with a single- reed mouth piece similar to that of
the clarinet.
The saxophone player provides a flow of air at a pressure above

that of the atmosphere.
This is the source of power input to the instrument, but it is a
source of continuous rather than vibratory power.
In the saxophone, the reed acts like an oscillating valve
(technically, a control oscillator). The reed, in cooperation with
the resonances in the air in the instrument, produces an
oscillating component of both flow and pressure.
Once the air in the saxophone is vibrating, some of the energy is
radiated as sound out of the bell and any open holes.
A reed is a thin strip of material which vibrates to produce a

sound on a musical instrument.
A player blows air into the saxophone through the reed.
When air is blown into the reed, there is a pressure difference created.
When this pressure difference increases, more air should flow through the
narrow gap left between the tip of the reed and the tip of the mouthpiece. So a
graph of flow vs pressure difference starts off almost proportionally.
as the pressure gets large enough to bend the reed, it acts on the thin end of
The reed and tends to push it upwards so as to close the aperture through
which the air is entering.
Saxophone is a closed type pipe. It is conical in shape but there

are saxophones who have a U bell to give some special
timbres.
he saxophone doesn't come to a sharp point: it has a
mouthpiece.
Since it is a closed pipe, antinode is formed at the reed and the
other node is formed at an open hole.
saxophone is approximately conical. This means that sound
waves 'spread out' as they travel down the bell. This means that
the amplitude of the waves gets smaller as we go from
mouthpiece to bell.
This is how a standing wave is formed for different notes.

This shows that as we open the holes from bottom to top, the
standing wave becomes shorter and higher notes are played.
Starting near the bell, each opened tone hole raises the pitch by a
semitone, which requires a pipe that is about 6% shorter.
The bell 'helps' the sound waves in the bore to radiate out into the air.
More sound radiated means less sound reflected, so the standing
waves are weaker. However, this effect is only strong for high
frequency: as the frequency increases over this range, the resonances
are more weakened by the bell at high frequency than at low. This is
because the bell is much smaller than the wavelengths of the low
frequency waves, and so is less effective at radiating these waves.

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Nakul Abhyankar 08M129

Guitars are the most popular and common

Sound is energy in the form of waves caused by vibration

The most important part to a guitar sound is the strings

When the soundboard of the guitar vibrates it

The sound hole is

The saxophone (also referred to as the sax) is a musical

The saxophone player provides a flow of air at a pressure above

A reed is a thin strip of material which vibrates to produce a

Saxophone is a closed type pipe. It is conical in shape but there

This is how a standing wave is formed for different notes.

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