Curated OER
Creating Musical Notation
In this creative music activity from Scientific American, students learn about musical notation and then design their own notations. Great web resource links are alsp provided
Physics Classroom
The Physics Classroom: Longitudinal Waves and Guitar Strings
A reference page including content and animations on longitudinal waves. Understand how sound waves are produced from vibrations in guitar strings to produce longitudinal waves.
Physics Classroom
The Physics Classroom: Sound Waves and Music: Guitar Strings
A guitar string has a number of frequencies at which it will naturally vibrate. These natural frequencies are known as the harmonics of the guitar string. Students work through several example problems.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Sti Lesson 11: The Cigar Box Guitar
Science instruction is most effective when using a hands-on delivery system. This lesson will use your students' natural affinity for music and musical instruments to reinforce and refine their knowledge of the nature of sound -...
Michigan Reach Out
Sounds Like Science: Guitars
At this site explore the relationship between audibility and frequency of sound, and the difference between frequency and volume.
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...
Michigan Reach Out
Michigan Reach Out!: Making a Shoe Box Guitar
This site provides an experiment where students create a guitar to discover what variables will change sound.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Sounds Like Music
Music can loosely be defined as organized sound. The lesson objectives, understanding sound is a form of energy, understanding pitch, understanding sound traveling through a medium, and being able to separate music from sound, can...
PBS
Pbs Teachers: Make a Guitar, Vibration Experiment
Experience how vibrations make sound by constructing a guitar using rubber bands and a cereal box.
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: The Ear Guitar
This simple activity helps students understand the role of vibration in producing sound.
University of Texas at Austin
Mathematics Teks Toolkit: The Sounds of Music
In this lesson plan, students collect data, graph it, then determine the period and frequency of the sound waves made by a guitar.
Georgia State University
Georgia State University: Hyper Physics: Musical Instruments
Homepage for a hypertext about the different families of musical instruments. From this page, users can retrieve information on a the acoustics of a variety of specific instruments: stringed instruments, woodwind instruments, brass...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Simple Instruments
In this activity, students work with partners to create four different instruments to investigate the frequency of the sounds they make. Students may chose to make a shoebox guitar, water glass xylophone, straw panpipe or a soda bottle...