Blog # 1

I would like to play the Ukelele, it is a string instrument. Sound is produced by the musician strumming the strings. Depending on how tight the strings are and how thick the strings are. A different sound or pitch is produced due to tension. Tension is kind of like friction, tension is caused by the objects resistance to movement, like friction. However, tension focuses more on the vibration of the strings rather than its movement in general.  By pressing down on the strings in different places on the frets (which are small rods attached to the neck of string instruments like guitars, ukeleles, violins etc.) also changes how high or low the pitch of the strings will be.  
Ukeleles are typically rounded wood, with a small cut out hole in the middle to let sound escape. the exact size of the ukeleles alternate. The shape is really important for the sound to amplify, the sound waves can bounce off of the rounded and flat surfaces rather than pointy or just simply a straight box.
Which makes me think a lot about how I'm going to create my ukelele, specifically what kind of materials I'm going to need in order for the sound waves the be amplified enough for everyone to hear them. I think that this is going to take a lot of hard work and a good amount of calculations especially when I add and tune the strings.

Considering that I didn't know much about sound waves except for the basics of them. Like how mediums interact with them, and the fact their their are multiple types such as sound, light or UVA/UVB rays, heat and wave disturbance within a liquid. I don't know exactly what type of wave is going through the liquid or medium. I did not learn about waves before these classes so this is all knew to me. But I know, that I have quite a bit of learning ahead of me before friday, when we perform.

Click here to see a video how how the song is played: http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-play-lazy-song-by-bruno-mars-ukulele-408518/

Click here to see the chords being played as well as where they show up in the song:
http://www.ukulelestrummer.com/lazy-song-bruno-mars/

For this project, I am planning on making a xylophone to play in our band.

How is it played? Well it's not a string, or wind instrument which means that you don't have to use your mouth or pluck your fingers. It's actually quite easy to play, all you need to do is hit the metal slates with some kind of mallet.

How do you change a note? Well there's different metal slates for each note. Some are bigger, some or smaller, depending on which note it's making.

How is it shaped? The xylophone is usually set up so that the pieces of metal are lying next to each other in a row from tallest to shortest.

How can I change sound? The different sizes of the metal make different noises, so the pitch depends on the size.

Well, for guitar, it's easy to understand how the sound is made, by hitting the strings of the guitar, you transfer energy and the strings vibrate to make specific pitches depending on the string played and the fret held down. To change the pitch, you have to use the frets, each fret down, starting from the top, changes the pitch by one half-step, so the first fret on an E string would give you an F note, and the second would give you an F sharp. The most important physical characteristic of a guitar is the hole in the body that lets the sound actually come off of the guitar. I'll be using wood, of course, and probably nails to help me make the little things that tune the strings, and I'm not sure of what to do for the frets. I'm going to be playing it with my fingers, as I think a pick is more or less unnecessary. I really just wanna know what I have to turn in when it's due.

 
My group & i decided to spell xylophone "Zillaphone", i'm telling you this because i dont want you to get confused when you see it spelled like that. =)

​-How is it played? What does the person have to do to produce sound?
You hit the notes with the mallets. The Zillahphone strike the metal bars of the Zillahphone (xylophone) with a stick produces a vibration. This vibration's sound is determined by the length of the bar. The longer ones produce a much deeper sound than the shorter ones. These sounds are enhanced by the resonator tubes below the bars. Air is pushed into these tubes, creating more vibration, but at the same pitch as the bar struck. A cord runs through the center of the xylophone, lifting the bars slightly away from the frame of the instrument, letting them vibrate freely.


It makes me think that this would be easy to play/handle.


Well i personally think that how hard you hit might effect the length of the wave, and every time you hit the bar, its another pulse.

The flute is played by blowing air from your mouth into the mouthpiece end of the flute. There are different types of blowing techniques. Most flutes are about 67 cm. There are over 6 types of flutes. The flute that I am going to model/made is "the concert flute." This flute is made of 3 parts, the headjoint, the body and the footjoint. To change the sound the the flute creates, you simply place a finger or fingers over a whole or wholes that are placed along the longer half of the flute. You can also change the sound by limiting the amount of air released from you mouth when blowing into the flute. The flute makes many different sounds, in many different pitches. When comparing the sound that the flute makes and sound waves, I imagine that the higher the wave, the higher the pitch and that if the pitch is low then the wave will be smaller.

You hold the handheld instrument in one or both hands and you blow on the top of each tube to make a specific sound(various pitches). In order to produce sound the pipes has two holes in them and the hole that you must blow in will be at the top and the bottom hole should be covered up by something so that the sound does not just travel straight through the pipe. To change a note, the user must blow on one of the pipes. Each pipe should create a certain pitch based on its size. The instrument is a row of pvc pipes from lowest to highest or vice versa. The instrument can also be made small enough to fit in your hand and also big enough to be played while sitting on a table. It is shaped basically like a set of stairs because of the row of pvc pipe sizes. The working of the instrument makes me think that the various sizes of the pipes are essential factors when it comes to producing the different pitches of sound. In all I believe that the wave of sound is specifically produced in an individual pipe to produce a certain pitch each time. None of the waves are the same because of the different types of sound produced. 

Pan flutes produce their sound via air vibrating down hollow tubes of varying lengths and diameters. The pitch can be changed by blowing into a different sized tube. For this change in pitch to occur, the tube must either change in length, or in diameter. Because constructing a pan flute out of pipes with different diameters would be rather challenging unless one could find exactly the right internal diameters with identical outer diameters, I will be changing the lengths of the pipes. I plan on using PVC pipe for the pan flute because the other real option is wood or metal. Metal is expensive, and I imagine a bit more difficult to work with, and wood would probably not keep as well, so PVC is a good balance between accessibility and reliability. I plan on doing some research into how to properly building a pan flute as I am not a craftsman by any stretch of the word, so I figure it's best to know what I'm doing before I attempt said task. My only real outstanding question would be how can I figure out the proper dimensions of each tube without gratuitous amounts of guess work and wasted PVC pipe?

I plan on making a pan flute. The pan flute is really a set of hollow tubes of varying lengths with one side closed up, all stuck together. Traditionally they are attached in order of pitch, but it's possible to have them in any order really, it would just make them more difficult to play properly. It's played by blowing across the openings of the hollow tubes. To change the note, you would blow into a different tube. Each tube is of a different length, and thus a different pitch. It's shape is a bit difficult to explain. It's a bunch of tubes attached at the sides, such that their tops are all even, making an odd sort of inverted arc (seen below).



 I imagine that larger  tubes create a deeper sound, and the thinner the tubes the higher the sound.