Eman Jamael November 5, 2021

GED- 107 Teaching Science in the Ma’am Norhayna Dimple Unte

Intermediate Grades
Tissue Box Guitar

Learning objectives:

A. Understand that vibration causes sound

B. Make a sound and identify what vibrates to cause the sound

Introduction

Did you know the modern guitar is an instrument that dates back more than 4,000
years? The first written guitar music was published in the 16th century, during a time
when guitars still had strings made from animal intestines! Although guitars have a
long history, they are still extremely popular in modern day music. Have you ever
wondered how they make the music you listen to everyday? In this activity we’ll
make our own guitars and test the different sounds we can create.

Background

Sounds travel to our ears as sound waves—vibrations in the air we perceive as sound.
These waves are generated by the vibration or movement of an object in a medium.
They most commonly reach us by traveling via the air, although they can also pass
through liquids and solids—that’s why you can hear things underwater or if you press
your ear up against a wall. A vibrating object, such as a tuning fork, generates a sound
wave. The fork’s vibrations cause the air particles around it to vibrate at the same
frequency. These air particles bump into the air particles around them, and the sound
wave propagates outward from the tuning fork.

When a guitarist plucks a guitar string it vibrates at a specific frequency, which

determines the pitch of the sound we hear. Faster vibrations produce higher-pitched
sounds. Children generally have smaller, thinner vocal cords that vibrate much faster
than those of adults. As a result children’s voices sound much higher.

In this activity you will build your own guitar and explore how frequency changes the
pitch of the sound we hear.

Materials

 Rubber bands
 Empty tissue box (or any)
 
Tissue Box Guitar Procedure

 Stretch a rubber band lengthwise over the opening of the tissue box.
 Decorate your work to make it more beautiful.

Observations and results

Gently pull the rubber band tight across the box and then release it.

The sound made by the instrument was the sound created by the rubber band vibrating
when you plucked it, much like how a real guitar string vibrates when played by a
musician. As you strummed the strings of your instrument you might have noticed
you could feel the vibrations of the rubber band traveling through the tissue box.

The thickness of the rubber band changed the tone of the sound you heard when you
plucked it. The thinner strings on a guitar make a higher-pitch sound because they can
vibrate more quickly than the thicker ones. The thinner strings on your rubber band
guitar are the same—they vibrate more quickly, and we perceive these vibrations as a
higher-pitched sound.