Lab 1: Period and frequency



Contents

Lab instructions………………………………………………………………..page 1

Lab02: Making music……………………………..……………………...……page 2

Lab02 Summary Questions………………………………………………………page 5

Lab instructions

• Read the lab description carefully. As you work through the lab, write your calculations in a notebook. You may be asked to include a picture of these calculations.

• There will be questions for you to answer at the end.

• The Lab Summary Questions must be uploaded to D2L under Assignments/Lab no later than 4pm on the Wednesday following lab.

Lab 2: Making music

Objectives

By the end of this lab you should be able to:

• Construct a musical scale

What to submit:

• Summary report to D2L under Assignments/Lab02

• MP3 sound file of your digital recording D2L under Assignments/Lab02

Materials:

• Computer with internet connection

• Masking tape

• Marker

• Instrument

o Narrow paper tubes you make yourself (they should be much longer than their width in order to work well), scissors, ruler (see video for hints)

o Or drinking straws, scissors, ruler

o Or, one string of a guitar or other stringed instrument

Definitions:

• Tonic: The first note in a musical scale. For example, C is the tonic of the C-major scale, which starts at C and goes up the white keys, in order, until you arrive at C one octave up.

• Pythagorean semitone (s): A musical interval corresponding to a ratio of 1.0535. It came about as we developed a 7-note musical scale based on fifths.

• Pythagorean tone (T): A musical interval corresponding to a ratio of 1.125.

Background

• As we have seen, a musical scale is a collection of pitches. We discussed how building a 7-pitch scale based intervals of a musical fifth revealed an interesting pattern: the notes of the scale were separated from their neighbors by one of two intervals. The longer one we called a tone (T), and the shorter one called a semitone (s).

• The drawing below shows the names of the piano white keys and the musical intervals between them.

[pic]

• A few simple melodies are listed below. Note that C* means the pitch one octave above C.

[pic]

• For this lab, pick one melody above. Find it online if you are unfamiliar with the melody, and listen to it.

• Then, using paper tubes, plastic drinking straws, or a single string on a guitar (or other stringed instrument), you will calculate the various lengths you need and play the song. An example of how to do this follows.

• You will then make a digital recording of your melody and submit it along with the summary questions for your lab.

Example:

• Suppose we want to play GGAGC*B, which is the first line of the Happy Birthday song.

• First, figure out how many unique notes there are, and write them in order from the lowest pitch to the highest. In this case, there are 4 notes: G-A-B-C*

• Second, determine a convenient length for the lowest note. As long as you do not have to play your music with anyone else, you can pick any convenient length. As long as you create the musical intervals correctly, you can create the desired melody. Suppose that we plan to play this on paper tubes, and will start with a length for G=48 cm long.

• Third, determine the next note, and the new length corresponding to it. The next note is A. From the diagram, we see that A is one tone (T) higher in pitch. To go up a musical interval, we will use the length calculation rule:

[pic]

For A (up tone from G): 48cm/1.125=42.67cm

For B (up tone from A): 42.67/1.125=37.93cm

For C* (up semitone from B): 37.93cm/1.0535=36.0cm

• Once you have the lengths, make a digital recording of your melody using Audacity. You should save your final recording, and export it as an MP3 file. See lab video for hints.

• Then answer the lab summary questions. Post both your lab summary questions and MP3 file to D2L under Assignments.

Lab02 summary questions and discussion

1) (10 pts) Describe the melody you played, and how. A) What was the song? B) What method did you choose to play it (paper tubes, drinking straws, string, other)?

2) (10 pts) Show how you calculated the lengths for the notes you needed. It is okay to write your calculations in a notebook, take a picture of it, then cut and paste into a Word file. You should show length calculations for all the pitches. I will grade you on how well you make clear why you did what you did. For the tonic, you should explain why you chose the length you did.

3) (10 pts) Discuss your final recording. A) What were some difficulties you encountered? B) Did you final recording sound like the melody? Discuss.

4) (10 pts) The lab makes the point that as long as you do not have to play your music with anyone else, you can make the tonic length anything you want. But what if you want to create music with someone else? Assume for simplicity that you each agree to use the same method, such as paper tubes. What are some ways you could each pick the length of the tonic so that when you combine sounds they are consonant? Discuss.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download