INVENT A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT Rules and guidelines for the competition

♦ You are being asked to design and/or build a model of a musical instrument that no one has

ever seen or played before by combining elements of art, music, science, math, engineering and physics.

♦ The most important thing is to use your creativity and imagination -- it’s free and comes to you at no extra cost! Don’t be shy! Invent the most fantastic instrument you can imagine!

♦ Your instrument will be judged on its creativity, care of construction, finished quality of the drawing, and its visual appeal.

THE INVENTOR The Artist - The Mechanical Engineer – The Scientist – The Mathematician

AND YOU… ♦ If you’ve ever drawn a picture, you are an artist. If you can draw a straight line with a ruler

and trace around a curve then you are well on your way to being a mechanical engineer. You’re a scientist if you know that the louder a sound is the farther it travels. If you can add 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, 1 drummer, 1 bass player, 1 piano, 2 saxophones, 1 guitar and 1 singer and get an 11-piece jazz band then you’re a mathematician. Then if you can combine art, engineering, science and math, you can be an INVENTOR…so let’s invent!

♦ You will first need to make a drawing or “blueprint” of your instrument on white paper or

poster board (drawing size no larger than 16 x 20 inches). For your “blueprint,” use colored pencils or markers to make your drawing. The drawing should include the “actual size” measurements of your instrument (height-length-width). You should label all the parts (some of the parts you might have to make up a name for) and identify the energy source or sources. Finally, give your invention a name. Now ask yourself, “How can I make a 3-D model of what I just drew?”

♦ Your instrument must combine elements from one of the three musical instrument groups –

wind, strings and percussion. You can also create an instrument that combines elements from several instrument groups.

As an example you might combine violin (strings), the bell of a tuba (wind) and a xylophone (percussion). It’s up to you to make them all fit together!

Although your invented instrument may not actually work, it does have to make sense. It is suggested that you study the sample drawing and photos of sample model that are included in your study guide)

♦ Building 3-D models: Models should not exceed 12” wide x 12”deep x 24” tall for display purposes but the actual size of your invention is up to you. (The sample model in the teaching packet photograph is 8”w x 10”d x 18” h.)

Writing Project

You will need to write a paragraph with a minimum of four sentences each in answer to each question: Make a small sketch of your instrument here: ♦ 1. How do you play this instrument? ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ♦ 2. What is the energy source that makes it work? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

♦ 3. What does your instrument sound like? ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ♦ 4. What parts and materials did you use or would you use to make your instrument? ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ♦ 5. What kind of music do you play on your instrument? ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Where do I get the parts? Some music repair shops or music stores might have instruments that can not be repaired. They might give you one to take apart. Using parts from musical instruments is not required, but being creative is! You might try looking in the garage, basement, attic or the kitchen (Ask your parents first!).

Materials that you might use to build your own working instrument:

Stringed Instruments and Drums: Coffee or Oatmeal cans Tin Cans Soda Cans Plastic Soda Bottles Fishing Line Wire Rattles: Beads Metal Washers Dried Beans, Corn or other seeds Plastic Soda Bottles and other smaller containers with lids

USE YOUR IMAGINATION!!

Look at objects around you and think about the sounds they might make if you put them together. Experiment! Be creative about the way you decorate your instrument! The more colorful and eye catching the better! If you can’t make a 3-D instrument, a highly finished drawing or painting will also be accepted. Teachers: For each instrument design submitted, an Instrument Design Submission Form will need to be filled out and attached to the 3-d instrument or drawing when it is dropped off at The Sheldon Art Galleries.

Teacher Resource Guide These websites have resources to help teachers teach about the science of musical instruments. A great site with real invented musical instruments: http://www.oddmusic.com/gallery/index.html The Physics of Music and the Science of Sound http://www.exhibits.pacsci.org/music/MusicPhysics.html http://library.thinkquest.org/19537/ This website includes simple sound explanations and simple science projects: http://www.fatlion.com/science/sound.html How instruments Work: These sites below have both explanations and good projects that can be done in the classroom or at home. Guitar: http://www.reachoutmichigan.org/funexperiments/agesubject/lessons/other/una5.html Kazoo: http://www.reachoutmichigan.org/funexperiments/agesubject/lessons/other/una6.html Bottle Organ: http://www.reachoutmichigan.org/funexperiments/agesubject/lessons/other/una7.html Smithsonian Institution Instruments Site: This site contains a very good glossary of musical instruments, both common and unusual, with links, photographs and drawings. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afccchtml/cowinst.html Music and Mathematics This site includes projects http://www.utc.edu/Research/thecmath/lesson_plans/DeborahTaylor/thec98dtaylor.html General Instruments Sites http://datadragon.com/education/instruments/ http://www.exhibits.pacsci.org/music/Fundamentals.html http://www.exhibits.pacsci.org/music/Instruments.html

Music Physics

Since sound is the medium of music, most of the physics of music is the physics of sound. Here's a little bit of music-related physics.

Vibration Vibration is the source of all sound. Vibrating objects push against the air (or other medium- you can substitute water, jello, or whatever) around them, creating little zones of compressed air (or water or jello). The zone of compressed air pushes against the air around it, which pushes against the air around that, and so on. Between compression pulses the air "springs" out past the pressure where it began, creating a zone of less pressure, or rarefaction. You end up with zones of compression and rarefaction that travel outward from the sound source, one after another at a rate equal to the rate of that source's vibration. These, friends, are sound waves.

Sound waves It's important to remember that sound waves are compression waves. You can imitate a compression wave by stretching out a slinky (you do have a slinky, don't you?) and flicking your finger against a coil at the end. Sound waves are not like the waves on the ocean or the waves you get by waving a stretched-out rope.

Frequency and pitch Sound waves have a frequency, which is the number of compression pulses that go past a fixed point in a given amount of time. The frequency of audible sound is measured in hertz, or cycles per second. Sound waves have a wavelength, which is the physical distance between compression pulses. The wavelength is inversely proportional to the frequency. Sound waves also have an amplitude, which is the amount of air (yes, water or jello) that gets moved with each pulse of pressure. Without going far into the physiology of it, you hear sounds when the pulses of compressed air of sound waves excite your eardrum, which excites your inner ear, which sends signals to your brain, which makes you dance, dance, dance! In general, you perceive the frequency of the wave as a particular pitch (see the pitch discussion, above). You perceive the amplitude of the wave as loudness.

Resonance Take a tuning fork (you do have a tuning fork, don't you?) and whack it on your knee. What do you hear? Unless you hold the tuning fork right next to your ear, you won't hear much of anything. This is because a small tuning fork can't push very much air around. Now take the same tuning fork, whack it on your knee again, and touch the non-forked end to a tabletop or other handy wooden surface. The sound should be a lot louder. This is because the vibrating tuning fork causes the tabletop to vibrate. The tabletop can push much more air around than the fork alone. If you touched the end of the tuning fork to a hollow box or, say, the body of a guitar, the sound would be even louder. This is because the vibrations get transferred to the air inside the box, which vibrates as well. If the dimensions of the inside of the box are a multiple of the wavelength of the sound, some of the sound waves will reinforce each other for even more

volume. If a vibration or sound wave can excite another object into vibrating, the second object is said to resonate. This phenomenon is called resonance.

Overtones The vibrating and resonating parts of musical instruments (and almost everything else that makes sounds) don't produce sound waves of just one frequency. This is because the vibrating body (e.g. string or air column) does not just vibrate as a whole; smaller sections vibrate as well. In the case of musical instruments, these additional frequencies are usually even multiples of the vibration frequency of the whole string, air column, bar, etc. For example, suppose you squeeze your accordion (the most sublime of all musical instruments) and press the key that lets the air out past a reed which, due to certain physical properties, vibrates 440 times per second. The vibrating reed will generate sound waves with a frequency of 440 Hz. (cycles per second), which happens to correspond to the A above Middle C. Because of other physical properties of the reed and the accordion, the instrument will also generate waves with a frequency of 880 Hz. (2 x 440), 1,320 Hz (3 x 440), 1,760 Hz. (4 x 440), etc. These extra frequencies are called overtones. Amazingly enough, when the overtones are close to even multiples of the fundamental frequency, our brains interpret the whole conglomeration of frequencies as a single pitch. Different instruments differ in the relative strengths of the various overtones, and that is what gives the instruments different timbres. This is also what makes your voice sound different from someone else's, even when you sing the exact same pitch. In the case of cymbals, gongs, snare drums, and the other indefinite-pitch percussion instruments, there are so many frequencies and overtones all at the same time that our brains don't pick out a definite pitch. You might notice, though, that the sound of a drum or woodblock can still be "higher" or "lower" than the sound of another.

Copyright Pacific Science Center 1996 Web Source: http://www.exhibits.pacsci.org/music/MusicPhysics.html

Instrument Photos: Saxophone

Trumpet

Violin

Bass Viol

Drums

Snare Drum

Bongo Drums

Harp

Guitar

Instrument Design Submission Form

School: ______________________________________________________ Principal: _____________________________________________________ Address: ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ Participating Teacher(s) Teacher Name: _______________________________ Teacher email: _______________________________ Teacher Contact Telephone Numbers: Home: _______________________ School: ______________________ Teacher Name: _______________________________ Teacher email: _______________________________ Teacher Contact Telephone Numbers Home: _______________________ School: ______________________ Title or Name of Instrument________________________________ Inventor Name or Names Age or Grade __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Inventor Parent’s Names and Address(es) [for opening invitations] Name ________________________ Address ______________________ Telephone ____________________ Name ________________________ Address ______________________ Telephone ____________________

If a team of students produced the instrument, please fill in additional parent names here: Name ________________________ Address ______________________ Telephone ____________________ Name ________________________ Address ______________________ Telephone ____________________ Name ________________________ Address ______________________ Telephone ____________________ Name ________________________ Address ______________________ Telephone ____________________ Name ________________________ Address ______________________ Telephone ____________________ Name ________________________ Address ______________________ Telephone ____________________ Name ________________________ Address ______________________ Telephone ____________________ Name ________________________ Address ______________________ Telephone ____________________ Name ________________________ Address ______________________ Telephone ____________________ Name ________________________ Address ______________________ Telephone ____________________