The primary purpose of this study was to examine the potential of LOw LAtency (LOLA), a low latency audio visual technology designed to allow simultaneous music performance, as a distance learning tool for musical styles in which synchronous playing is an integral aspect of the learning process (e.g., jazz, folk styles). The secondary purpose was…

My unit on sound and waves is embedded within a long-term project in which my high school students construct a musical instrument out of common materials. The unit culminates with a performance assessment: students play the first four measures of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"--chosen because of the octave interval of the first two notes--in the key…

There are few detailed studies of impaired voice recognition, or phonagnosia. Here we describe two patients with progressive phonagnosia in the context of frontotemporal lobar degeneration. Patient QR presented with behavioural decline and increasing difficulty recognising familiar voices, while patient KL presented with progressive prosopagnosia.…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of varied accent/articulation marks on listeners' perceptions of forcefulness of attack and length of sustain in trombone articulations. Musicians (N = 68) were asked to listen to a series of seven short musical excerpts in which a predefined set of pitches would be accented. Participants rated…

Expression in musical performance is largely communicated by the "manner" in which a piece is played; interpretive aspects that supplement the written score. In piano performance, timing and amplitude are the principal parameters the performer can vary. We examined the way in which such variation serves to communicate emotion by…

This study is aimed to develop the interdisciplinary SoSTI (science of sound in traditional Thai musical instruments) course for Thai non-science upper secondary school students to study the students' attitudes toward science before and after studying from the course. The SoSTI course development is based on the interdisciplinary concept model and…

Directors strive for a unified sound throughout their wind and orchestra ensembles. Articulation affects sound uniformity among winds and strings. This baseline study examined whether a trumpet player could better match a violin player's articulation, as perceived by participants listening to a recording of two performances, when: (a) performing…

One of the forms of first musical conduct is the exploration of sound sources. When young children produce sounds with any object, these sounds may surprise them and so they make the sounds again--not exactly the same, but introducing some variation. A process of repetition with slight changes is set in motion which can be analysed, as did Piaget,…

This article describes "Build a Band" hands-on activity from "Design Squad Nation," which allows kids to use simple materials to build a four-stringed instrument, then tune it and play a song. Kids explore frequency, pitch, and sound energy while following the steps of the engineering design process. By weaving "Design Squad Nation" episodes,…

This research illustrates how varying enactments of an engineering-design-based science curriculum shaped the development of students' domain-specific scientific ideas and practices. In this comparative case study rooted in the analytical perspectives of activity theory and learning environments, student and teacher participants in three…

The physics of the plucked string has been treated in many articles and books. For our 12th-grade high school physics laboratory, we have built a cheap, simple sonometer apparatus for each pair of students on which they may investigate some interesting phenomena that arise when a string is plucked. Among these are the generation of harmonics…

In today's world of too much information, context--not content--is king. This proposal is for the development of an unparalleled sonic analysis tool that converts audio files into musical score notation and a Web site (API) to collect manage and preserve information about the musical sounds analyzed, as well as music scores, videos, and articles…

Recognition and separation of sounds played by various instruments is very useful in labeling audio files with semantic information. This is a non-trivial task requiring sound analysis, but the results can aid automatic indexing and browsing music data when searching for melodies played by user specified instruments. Melody match based on pitch…

The simultaneous sound of several voices or instruments requires proper tuning to achieve consonance for certain intervals and chords. Most instruments allow enough frequency variation to enable pure tuning while being played. Keyboard instruments such as organ and piano have given frequencies for individual notes and the tuning must be based on a…