Skip to content Skip to navigation

Connexions

You are here: Home » Content » Standing Waves and Music: Suggested Demonstrations

Navigation

Content Actions
  • Download module PDF
  • Add to ...
    Add the module to:
    • My Favorites
    • A lens
    • An external social bookmarking service
    • My Favorites (What is 'My Favorites'?)
      'My Favorites' is a special kind of lens which you can use to bookmark modules and collections directly in Connexions. 'My Favorites' can only be seen by you, and collections saved in 'My Favorites' can remember the last module you were on. You need a Connexions account to use 'My Favorites'.
    • A lens (What is a lens?)

      Definition of a lens

      Lenses

      A lens is a custom view of Connexions content. You can think of it as a fancy kind of list that will let you see Connexions through the eyes of organizations and people you trust.

      What is in a lens?

      Lens makers point to Connexions materials (modules and collections), creating a guide that includes their own comments and descriptive tags about the content.

      Who can create a lens?

      Any individual Connexions member, a community, or a respected organization.

      What are tags? tag icon

      Tags are descriptors added by lens makers to help label content, attaching a vocabulary that is meaningful in the context of the lens.

    • External bookmarks
  • E-mail the author
  • Rate this module (How does the rating system work?)

    Rating system

    Ratings

    Ratings allow you to judge the quality of modules. If other users have ranked the module then its average rating is displayed below. Ratings are calculated on a scale from one star (Poor) to five stars (Excellent).

    How to rate a module

    Hover over the star that corresponds to the rating you wish to assign. Click on the star to add your rating. Your rating should be based on the quality of the content. You must have an account and be logged in to rate content.

    		(0 ratings)

Recently Viewed

This feature requires Javascript to be enabled.

Standing Waves and Music: Suggested Demonstrations

Module by: Catherine Schmidt-Jones

Summary: Suggestions for demonstrating some of the key properties of standing waves in musical instruments to k-12 students.

Explanations of the concepts for these demonstrations are available in Standing Waves and Musical Instruments and Standing Waves and Wind Instruments.

Here is a handout on Standing Waves that you can copy for your class. If you have trouble with the PDF file, the handout is reproduced as a figure below.

Use water waves in a large container or waves on a tightly-held jumprope or slinky to demonstrate wave reflection and, if possible, waves reinforcing each other. You may even be able to get standing waves in your jumprope or slinky.

Try to arrange for some demonstrationsby musicians: by a string player to demonstrate open and held strings; by a brass and/or woodwind player to demonstrate mouthpiece sound vs. whole-instrument sound; by a percussionist to demonstrate tuned versus untuned drums, and that size affects the sound even of untuned drums.

Have your class try some of the activities in Sound and Music.

Figure 1
Figure 1 (stringswinds.png)

Comments, questions, feedback, criticisms?

Send feedback