Category: Science of music

Pitch bending is a technique where the player changes the pitch of a note by changing their embouchure, rather than the fingering of the note. It possible to change the pitch of a note by multiple tones if you have enough control over your embouchure and diaphragm. It’s a difficult technique, but I’ve been looking into how to do it well and how different it is between different instruments and pitches.

Continue reading “How Do You Pitch Bend on a Single Reed Instrument?”

Playing an instrument doesn’t seem like a particularly common skill as an adult. As children, a lot of us will have played an instrument at some point at school, but many of those give this up as they get older. So what percentage of people in the UK actually play an instrument and which of them are the most commonly played?

Continue reading “What percentage of people play a musical instrument?”

One of the most important aspects of playing an instrument is the tuning. If you can’t play in tune, no matter how good you get technically, you’ll never produce a really nice sound, particularly if you’re playing with other people. Playing in tune can be difficult, particularly on certain notes or over big intervals. So how can you improve your tuning? I’ve put together some tips that you can work on here.

Continue reading “How Can I Get Better at Playing in Tune?”

All woodwind instruments have a finite set of fingerings. Within a given note range, the fingering for each note will be different. However, when you get to the point where you’re learning to play a second octave, you’ll find that a lot of the notes have the same fingering. So what’s actually going on physically when you change the pitch of the note without changing your fingering?

Continue reading “How do you Play Different Notes with the Same Fingering?”

It is often stated that children that learn a musical instrument are able to progress more quickly at school. I’ve often wondered if there is any truth behind this, or whether it’s just speculation. I did some reading of the research that has been done on the subject and put together some notes on what I found out.

Continue reading “Do Children Who Learn Instruments do Better at School?”

When you play a woodwind instrument, you use your lungs a lot more than the average person. I have always been curious about what effect this could have on the lungs, good or bad. It is often said that wind musicians generally have a greater lung capacity than other people, but is this true, and could there be other effects on the lungs? I’ve had a look into this and have found out some interesting information.

Continue reading “How Does Playing a Woodwind Instrument Affect your Lungs?”

There are quite a few different materials that metal instruments can be made from. If you buy an instrument made from a more expensive metal, it will cost more money. It can be difficult to tell whether instruments made from more expensive metals are actually better, or whether it’s just a money-making scheme. I wanted to find this out so I looked into the physics of what is different when sound waves propagate through different materials to see whether there is a real difference in sound quality.

Continue reading “What is the Best Metal For an Instrument?”

You might notice when you’re playing in a band that certain sounds carry better than others. You’ll often hear the high notes standing out over the rest of the band. On the other hand, if you’re living near someone who plays really loud music, the bit you usually hear is the bass. I’ve often wondered whether the pitch of the note has an impact on its volume so I decided to look into it in more detail.

Continue reading “Is the Volume of Notes Related to Frequency?”

The clarinet and the soprano sax are both about the same size. So why does the clarinet play so much lower? This is something I have often vaguely wondered about and then forgotten about pretty quickly. This time, I thought I’d do some research and see if I can actually find out why it’s the case.

Continue reading “How Does Sop Sax Range Compare to Clarinet?”

When you’re on a plane, or just somewhere really high up, the air pressure is different to when you’re at ground level. I was wondering what would happen to the tuning of an instrument as a result of the change in pressure. There’s quite a bit of physics to think about for this, but the answer is pretty interesting!

Continue reading “Do Instruments Play Out of Tune on a Plane?”