PRACTICAL 3 : SOUND QUALITY Learning outcome : produced.

Introduction : Any sound that you hear as a tone is made of regular, evenly spaced waves of air molecules. The most noticeable difference between various tonal sounds is that some sound higher or lower than others. These differences in the pitch of the sound are caused by different spacing in the waves; the closer together the waves are, the higher the tone sounds. The spacing of the waves - the distance from the high point of one wave to the next one - is the wavelength. All sound waves are travelling at about the same speed - the speed of sound. So waves with a longer wavelength don't arrive (at your ear, for example) as often (frequently) as the shorter waves. This aspect of a sound - how often a wave peak goes by, is called frequency by scientists and engineers. They measure it in hertz, which is how many wave peaks go by in one second. People can hear sounds that range from about 20 to about 17,000 hertz. The word that musicians use for frequency is pitch. The shorter the wavelength, the higher the frequency, and the higher the pitch, of the sound. In other words, short waves sound high; long waves sound low. Instead of measuring frequencies, musicians name the pitches that they use most often. To demonstrate and explain how different sound quality is

Pitch of sound: It is the characteristic of a musical sound which distinguishes a sharp or shrill sound from a dull or grave sound.The sensation of the pitch depends upon the frequency of the waves received by the ear.The pitch is large if the frequency is high while if the pitch is low the frequency will be small.Sound waves of the same frequencies are said to be

in same pitch.The sensation of the pitch of musical sound can be easily demonstrated with the help of the toothed wheel which is capable of being rotated at variable speeds.A piece of card is placed against the teeth.When the card strikes and passes from one tooth to another sound is generated at each tooth,as the speed increased the sound produced at each tooth merge produces the fastest frequency of sensation of its pitch.How ever the pitch is not the same tyhing as frequency.The pitch depends upon frequency.frequency is the measurable physical quantity of sound whereas the pitch is the sensation produced by it. Pitch and Loudness of Sound Loudness of sound: It is the property of musical sound which determines the degree of sensation(loudness) produced in the ear and thus enables us to distinguish between two sounds of the same pitch.It is the character of all sounds to distinguish whether it is a sound are noise.It is the sensation produced by the wave on the ear drum.It is different from its intensity which is a measurable physical quantity.

Rajah 2: High Frequency

Rajah 1 : Low Frequency

Measurement of the Loudness of Sound Loudness is measured by the amount of energy of sound falling per second on an unit area placed normally to the direction of the propagation of the wave. The loudness of sound depends on

Amplitude of the wave: A body vibrating with greater amplitude produces a louder sound than produced by a vibrating body of the smaller amplitude.For example tuning fork produces faint sound when it hits hardly this is because the prong vibrate with greater amplitude. Distance from the listener from the source: It is the intensity of sound which is inversely proportional to square of the distance from the source.If we are close to the source the sound heard will be high. Surface area of the vibrating body: A smaller body produces the less sound when compared to the larger bell producing sound.This is because the larger the surface area the sets the more air to vibrate and produce much louder sound. Density of Medium: A sound wave travelling in a medium of greater density will produce greater intensity than when tracelling into a medium of smaller density. Materials : 3 identical glass bottles, water, turning fork, bowl, meter rule, and pencil. Activity : Demonstrating the production of different sound quality. Variables 1) Manipulated 2) Responding 3) Fix/constatnt : the amount of water in each bottle : the sound produced (pitch) : the size of the bottles

Procedures : 1. A bowl is filled with water. A tuning fork is tapped against the sole of your shoes. The tip of one of the prongs is placed in the water. What did I observe? 2. The tuning fork is tapped again. I recorded what was happen when I holded it near my ear. What did I hear? 3. Water I sput into 3 identical glass bottles so that bottla A is full, bottle B is full and bottle C is full. 4. The distance from the top of each bottle to the surface of the water is measured. Then the height of the water in each bottle is measured. My measurement is recorded. 5. The difference in pitch I heard is predicted if I blew across the top of each bottle in turn. Reasons is given for my predictions. 6. My prediction is tested by blowing over the top of each bottle. I tried to listen to the sound produced. Each sound in terms of its pitch is described whether its low, medium or high. The pitch of each sound is recorded. 7. When the side of a bottle with a pencil is gently tapped, another sound is produced. Did I think the sound will be similar to or different from the sound produced by blowing across the top of the bottle? Explain. 8. My prediction is tested by tapping on the side of each bottle with a pencil. The pitch of each sound is recorded. Results : Results for blowing the top of each bottle : Bottle Water Distance from top until surface of water A B C full full full 40 cm 30 cm 20 cm 10 cm 20 cm 30 cm Lower Medium Highest Height of water Level of pitch

Results for tapping the side of a bottle with a pencil : Bottle Water Distance from top until surface of water A B C full full full 40 cm 30 cm 20 cm 10 cm 20 cm 30 cm Highest Medium Lower Height of water Level of pitch

Mastery Of Knowledge And Skills Questions : 1. In procedure 6, which bottle produced the highest pitch? What caused the change in pitch from bottle to bottle? Bottle A is full. So it produced the highest pitch when I blew over the top of the bottle. When you blow across the top of each bottle, it makes the air inside the bottle vibrate. Small air spaces vibrate more rapidly than large air spaces. When there is little air in the bottle, you produce a high note. When there is more air, the note is lower.

2. Describe how the sound is produced in procedure 8? Which bottle produced the highest pitch? What caused the change in pitch from bottle to bottle? The sound produced by the three bottles is different in pitch when I tapped on the side of each bottle with a pencil. Bottle A produced the highest pitch compared to the bottle A and bottle B. A change of pitch in a sound is caused by a change of wavelength. This can be caused by a change in length or size of the vibrating or oscillating device or system causing the sound. When I tap each glass, it makes the glass vibrate. The pitch of the note depends on the amount of water in the glass. With more water, the pitch of the note is lower.

3. Compare the sounds you produce by blowing across the top of the bottles with those produced by tapping on the bottles. What was the difference in pitch for each bottle? Explain your observations. Specifically for bottle C, it has the highest pitch because when I blow across the top of each bottle, it makes the air inside the bottle vibrate. Small air spaces vibrate more rapidly than large air spaces. When there is little air in the bottle, you produce a high note. When there is more air, the note is lower. When I tap each glass, it makes the glass vibrate. Bottle A has the highest pitch. The pitch of the note depends on the

amount of water in the glass. With more water, the pitch of the note is lower.

4. By looking at your data table, how does the length of the column of air affect the pitch? How does the height of the water affect the pitch? The higher the length of the column of air, the lower the pitch. The higher the height of water, the higher the pitch.

5. What conclusions can you draw about the relationship between the sounds produced and the medium through which the sound travels? Sound travels faster in a denser medium, so sound travels most rapidly in steel. However, since sound is a longitudinal wave it is medium dependent, meaning that a medium must be present. Since a vacuum is basically

defined as a lack of medium, sound will not travel at all. This is different from light which travels slowest in solids and fastest in air or vacuum.

6. THINK : Violins are stringed instrument. Flutes and clarinets are woodwinds, and trumpets are brass instruments. What do all these musical instruments have in common?

In the case of the clarinet, the instrument's single reed beats against its mouthpiece, opening and closing the instrument's cylindrical closed tube to produce a tone. When the instrument is overblown, with or without the aid of its register key, the pitch is a twelfth higher. In the case of a

saxophone, which has a similar mouthpiece-reed combination to the clarinet, or of an oboe, where double reeds beat against each other to the same effect, the conical-shaped bore of these instruments gives their the closed tube properties of an open tube; when overblown, the pitch jumps an octave higher.

Discussion : 1. From the experiment of demonstrating the production of different sound quality, I proved that the higher the length of the column of air, the lower the pitch. The higher the height of water, the higher the pitch. 2. The effect of blowing the top of the bottles different when we tapping the side of the bottle. If we blow the top of the bottle which is has more water, it will produced higher pitch compared when we tap the side of the bottle which is contain more water, it will produced lower pitch. 3. From the results above, bottle A,B and C produced different pitch. It is

because the sound depends on the amount of water in the bottles. For the results of blowing the top of the bottles, the higher the height of water, the higher the pitch and vice versa.

Reflection : From the experiment above, we have learnt lots of things about demonstrating the production of different sound quality. We need to make an experiment and get tge result about the differences between the blowing top of the bottle and the sound produced when we tapping the side of the bottle which is containing the different amount of water of each bottle. There is a relationship between the topics. We need

to know how to relate them when we did the experiment. Besides that, we should cooperate among each other to complete the experiment and also the report. If we have strong cooperation among each members, we will finish this task perfectly because all of them gave ideas and opinions about the problems we had faced about. Conclusion : The level of pitch depends on the amount of water in a bottle.

References : Sound. Accessed on March 16, 2011. From http://mypages.iit.edu/~smile/ph9536.html What causes sound to change pitch while stirring a cup of coffee? Accessed on March 16, 2011. From http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_causes_sound_to_change_pitch_while_stirring_ a_cup_of_coffee Sound/pitch. Accessed on March 16, 2011. From http://mypages.iit.edu/~smile/ph9103.html Overblowing. Accessed on March 16, 2011. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overblowing Sound. Accessed on March 16, 2011. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound