A Scientific Art Form – Music

 

Which was the first sound which was heard in the creation of Universe.

 

Om consists of three syllables: A, U, and M. These three syllables are said to represent the three
states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. In quantum mechanics, there are also
three states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas. Additionally, the frequency of the sound of Om is said
to be 432 Hz, which is the same frequency that is found in nature, including the frequency of the
earth’s rotation and the frequency of the heartbeat

How music is produced

When we talk about music many of us directly relate it to the modern day instruments. But the
origin of music was from nowhere else other than nature.
When we talk about nature than animal sounds these sounds often carry distinct patterns and
rhythms, creating a natural symphony. And in weather we can say thunderstorms, rainfall,
rustling leaves, and wind whistling through trees generate their own unique sounds.
Now the important factor here to observe is that these sounds are created by the flow of air and
vibrations and this observation led us to invent our first ever musical instrument Flute.

Our First Ever Musical Instrument

The oldest musical instrument in the world, a 60,000-year-old Neanderthal flute is a treasure
of global significance. It was discovered in Divje babe cave near Cerkno and has been
declared by experts to have been made by Neanderthals. In this flute, the vibrations are
caused by the constant flow of air pressure. And when the vibration in this flute developed
flow of air is controlled by precision it causes a rhythmic and melodious sound which is
pleasing to Ear.

What are the key concepts which distinguish music from ordinary sound?

When we hear an ordinary sound and a musical sound there is a much difference between there
melody. There are some important concepts to understand this difference.

1. Pitch – Pitch refers to the highness or lowness of sound, and in music we intentionally
   create different pitches to create melodies and harmonies.
2. Rhythm – When we talk about music it has a rhythmic structure which has a pattern of
   beats or time intervals that creates a flow and structure within the sound. Mainly rhythm
   involves sounds and silences in a particular sequence.
3. Harmony – harmony involves combining of different pitches or notes simultaneously to
   create chords.
   In last all of these combinedly creates melody in sound by playing these musical notes in
   sequence which forms a recognizable tune or musical phrase.

Types of Musical Instruments

Now on moving ahead let’s discover more about different types musical instruments and their
functionality:

1. String Instruments: These produce sound through vibrating strings. The strings can be plucked,
   bowed, or struck. Examples include guitars, violins, cellos, and harps.
2. Wind Instruments: Sound is created by vibrating air within the instrument. This can be achieved
   through blowing air across a mouthpiece (like flutes and clarinets), through a reed (like saxophones),
   or through the vibration of the player’s lips (like trumpets and trombones).
3. Percussion Instruments: These produce sound through being struck, shaken, or rubbed. Drums,
   cymbals, xylophones, and tambourines fall into this category.
4. Keyboard Instruments: These use keys to produce sound. The keys, when pressed, activate
   mechanisms that produce sound. Examples include pianos, organs, and synthesizers.
5. Electronic Instruments: These create sound using electronic circuitry or digital technology.
   Synthesizers, electronic keyboards, and drum machines fall into this category.

Guitar

When we talk about musical instruments so one of the very finest instrument is string
instruments which creates vibration through the tightly stretched strings.
The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that typically consists of a body, a neck, and strings.
It’s played by plucking or strumming the strings with the fingers or a pick
If we talk about the history of guitar, it is probably originated in spain early in the 16th century.
The word guitar is derived from the latin word guitarra latina

How guitar makes sound?

Guitars consist of two sections: the neck and the body. Strings are run from the neck to the body. When a
string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is
also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, resonating through the air in the body, finally
producing sound from the sound hole.
To produce sound, the guitarist strikes the strings that make them vibrate. This vibration of strings creates an
energy that shifts to the soundboard via the bridge. The vibrating strings also produce a sound which is the
hollow body of guitar amplifiers. The pitch of sound or vibrating strings depends on the tension, mass, and
length of traditional gut strings.
In guitars with steel strings, the thickness of the lower strings is more. The way you tune them alters the
tension. The pitch depends on its tightness. By pushing down on frets, you can also change the number of
strings that are free to vibrate. The pitch of sound also depends on the distance between the fret and
soundhole. If the soundhole and fret are close, vibrating strings are shorter. Thus, it produces a higher pitch

Scientific Working of Guitar

When you pluck a guitar string, the string starts vibrating in a complex pattern. But the sound you hear isn’t
coming directly from the vibrating string. Rather, the vibration is being transferred to the soundboard through
the saddle.
The way in which a guitar string vibrates is actually a little more complicated. When that little travelling kink
makes 440 round trips (from saddle to nut and back) every second, the string makes the sound for the “A”
above middle “C”.
Otherwise known as “A 440”: the A at 440 hertz (Hz).
But here’s the trickier bit: While the string is vibrating at 440 Hz, it’s also vibrating in halves at 880 Hz.
…And in thirds, at 1,320 Hz. And fourths, at 1,760 Hz. And so on.

Electric Guitar

The electric guitar has been as influential to modern music as the pianoforte and violoncello before it. And
while some harbingers of guitar’s end have been holding the nail above the coffin for decades, the instrument
endures today as a hallmark of rock and blues music and virtually all forms of modern progressive metal.
Have you ever stopped to marvel at how your favorite electric guitars work? By all rights, the pickups and
tailpieces we love are in need of some serious 21st-century overhauling. Yet, for all their shortcomings, these
classic designs continue to dominate in popularity across all player groups. Sweetwater looks at the
mechanics and electronics of the electric guitar and why, despite the industry’s attempts, this is one
instrument that isn’t going away anytime soon

Mechanics of the Modern Electric Guitar

Ask most players what an electric guitar is, and they’ll screw up their faces at you — “It’s a guitar with
pickups?” — as if the guitar itself were some concrete, Platonic form and not a tiny miracle of modern
craftsmanship and engineering. So, before we move on to the electronics, let’s look at how the guitar itself is
constructed and how tones are generated.
The body of an electric guitar — which may be solid, semi-hollow, or fully hollow — serves as an anchor
point for the string bridge and the electronics. Most bodies are designed to allow the player to strum, hold,
and interact with the instrument comfortably from a seated or standing position. Unlike acoustic guitars,
electric guitars typically don’t have sound holes since amplification occurs primarily through electronic
means

Uses of Neck, frets, and fingerboard

A guitar’s neck supports its strings and supplies an anchor point for the string nut and the tuning machines.
It’s also responsible for giving a guitar its scale length, as determined by the distance between the nut and
twelfth-fret position (multiplied by two). The neck commonly joins the guitar body by way of a series of
screws, glue, or what’s known as a neck-through construction, whereby the neck and body are effectively
one piece of wood. The playing surface of the forward-facing side of the neck is known as the
fingerboard/fretboard. Metal frets are carefully positioned up and down the fingerboard to assign note values.

Uses of Strings Bridges and Nuts

Strings are the tone generators of the electric guitar. These are held
taut and tensioned to pitch by the hind-end bridge, the front-end nut,
and the tuning machines. By design, an electric guitar’s strings are
made from nickel, steel, or a combination of other ferromagnetic
materials.
● In traditional electric guitars, the body-mounted bridge is where
strings are loaded into the instrument and fed up to the neck-mounted
nut and tuners. The bridge may be movable, such as in a vibrato
tailpiece, or stationary, commonly known as a hardtail.
● The nut is carefully filed to seat the strings; the nut may be open or
locking with clamping teeth to keep the strings from detuning.

Pickups: The Heart of the Electric Guitar

An electric guitar’s pickups operate on Faraday’s principle of electromagnetic induction. Simply stated, the
vibrational energy of the ferrous strings is converted to electrical energy by magnets in the pickups. This
energy exits the guitar in the form of a low-current signal, which is then amplified by an external
preamplifier and/or power amplifier. This device converts string vibrations into electricity, and is embedded
in the body of the guitar right beneath the strings. Pickups use coils, which you may remember from
conducting science experiments in school. An electric guitar pickup consists of a black bobbin with six
magnetic bars inserted, and a material such as enameled wire wound around the magnets. Six magnets are
used to better pick up the sound from the six stings. Some pickups use metal rods instead of magnets.