Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Make Your Own Electric Guitar Pickup
If you like playing electric guitar, this could be a cool project for you. In this project you'll wind one or more of your own electric guitar pickups and test them out in an inexpensive electric guitar to understand just how electric...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Make Your Own Piezoelectric Pickup for Acoustic Guitar
In this project you'll learn how to make a piezoelectric pickup for acoustic guitar using inexpensive components. You can then connect your acoustic guitar to an amplifier, and record your own music. If you are interested in electronics...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Pick This Project!
This lab will help you understand the physics of vibrating strings, and find out why the tone of an electric guitar changes when you switch between the different pickups. If playing guitars is a hobby of yours, this experiment makes an...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Blowing Bottletops: Making Music With Glass Bottles
This is a musical project about the resonance of closed-end air columns. Organ pipes, flutes, and brass instruments are examples of musical instruments of this type. In this project, you'll learn how the pitch of the note produced...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Singing Wine Glasses
Making a glass sing is not always as easy as it looks. This project explains the science behind the interesting hobby. You will be asked how the amount of fluid within a glass affects its pitch.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Guitar Fundamentals: Wavelength, Frequency, & Speed
This is a rockin' project for guitarists with an interest in the physics behind music. If you have ever wondered why the pitch of the note changes when you fret the string, this project will help you understand by applying basic...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: How to Make a Guitar Sing
This is a great project for musicians interested in the physics of stringed instruments. If you have ever played an acoustic guitar, you may have noticed that picking a single string can make one or more of the other (unpicked) strings...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: How to Make a Piano Sing
The renowned pianist Vladimir Horowitz once said, "The most important thing is to transform the piano from a percussive instrument into a singing instrument." In this lab, you will learn about sympathetic vibrations, a method used to...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: What Material Makes the Most Resonant Soundboard?
If you like music and musical instruments, this project might resonate with you. You will investigate materials that could be used to build acoustic musical instruments. You can then use a music box mechanism and a sound level meter to...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Do String Players Have Longer Left Fingers?
Physical activity is needed for maintaining normal bone strength and mass. But whether physical stress on finger bones during development leads to an increase in finger length, is something you will discover in this project not by...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Correlation Between Pitch & Age, Gender, Musical Background
Music can be a great way to learn more about science. This project uses music to examine whether there is a correlation between age, gender, or musical background and being able to sing with perfect pitch.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Do Re Mi With Straws
Check out this fun science fair project about the physics of musical sound production. Here you will make musical instruments with drinking straws, one for each note on a one-octave major scale. You will figure out the right lengths for...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Mp3 Squeeze: How Much Compression Is Too Much?
Do you love to listen to your MP3 player while you're exercising, or listen to songs on the Internet? The relatively recent development of MP3 technology has made it possible to take a stack of CD's and store them on a device no bigger...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Movie Music
Have you ever seen a great movie and then rushed out and bought its soundtrack? Did the soundtrack bring back the thrill of an action chase? Or the sadness one of the movie's characters felt? Music is a big part of the movie experience....
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: How Tweet It Is: Bird Songs in Classical Music
Do you enjoy singing contests like American Idol? Well, male songbirds have their own version of a singing competition that has been going on for thousands of years, and classical musical composers have been taking notes. In this music...
Luminarium
Luminarium: Middle English Lyrics
This website provides links to full texts of Middle English song lyrics, which are illustraed with illuminated manuscript art and fully annotated. Links to essays, articles, and related resources.
Discovering Lewis & Clark
Discovering Lewis & Clark: Music on the Trail
Discover how the men of the expedition turned to music for entertainment or to impress the Indians they met. Learn about and listen to Jefferson the violinist and Pierre Cruzatte the fiddle player.
University of Florida
Baldwin Library: Every Day Gems: A Collection of New Music by R. B. Mahaffey
This is an online photocopy of the original text of the children's book Every Day Gems: A Collection of New Music by R. B. Mahaffey (c1885), a collection of music for public schools.
PBS
Pbs: Frontline: Discover How Music Could Change a Country
Embrace cultural diversity and the social and economic benefits that might arise if citizens integrated music into their lives in Paraguay. Encourage students to think about how music can change a country.
Other
Lawrence University: A Brief History of Singing
An introduction to the history of Western solo singing from ancient times to the present can be found here.
Other
Perfect Sound Forever: The Migration of African Music
This site discusses the migration of African music throughout the world and its influence on other cultures. It also speaks of the types of instruments used and the way in which they express the moods and feelings of their players.
Other
Reggae France
At this reggae site you can listen to interviews (text or video) and to the sounds of reggae. You can see album covers and get the latest reggae news (real audio).
Other
Wesleyan University: West African Music
This site talks about the African harp, guitar and several other instruments.
Other
Lute Harpsichord: A Forgotten Instrument
Interesting website on the lute-harpsichord, which is called "one of Bach's favorite keyboard instruments." Provides an in-depth history of this "forgotten instrument" and the ordinary lute.