Playing to learn: Hands-on activities in the musical acoustics classroom

Abstract

The physics of musical instruments is a topic that often appeals to students who might not otherwise take a physics course. These students (and the physics majors!) respond very well to active-learning approaches in which they are led to explore the mathematics and physics they are learning by means of real objects making real sounds. I will describe the activities I have incorporated into a course for first-year undergraduates that I have co-taught with a colleague from the Music Department for two decades. Students demonstrate phenomena on instruments they play, make measurements of vibrating strings and air columns, produce vibrating reeds from drinking straws, design wind chimes, and build novel (and often comical) stringed and wind instruments out of found objects. The class culminates in a concert in which students perform their own compositions for ensembles of those instruments. I will relate the success of these activities to the findings from physics education research that underpin them.