tang991 Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 I'm in my senior year of high school now and so I was able to take an Independent Study this year. I chose to do acoustic physics, because I figured that this would be as close to music as I could get within the context of a physics course. Man was I wrong!! I was gonna stick to doing stuff like examining sound wave patterns in concert halls and auditorium acoustics and maybe even get into like the acoustic patterns of violins and guitars and stuff like that... So my first research project was on this cool stuff called "Hypersonic Sound" which basically allows you to pinpoint a beam of sound at someone over 100 yards away and whisper in their ear--the sound doesn't die off or disperse, the person standing right next to them won't even hear a thing! It's like a megaphone laserbeam. While researching hypersonic sound I learned about a musical concept called "Tartini tones", in physics, they're called "difference tones". Basically, it's a third tone that is produced when two tones mix... say you play a C and an A, a third tone, lower than the C, would be produced "out of thin air" due to the physics of sound. So this kind of got me interested into how this may have a role in consonance and dissonance in harmonies or even the qualities of chords. Maybe there's actually a scientific reason why playing C and C# sound bad--it's not just something that our mind makes up. Maybe there's a reason that a major chord is happy and a minor chord is sad. So here's most of the research and observations I've made so far http://eikemaas.blogspot.com There's no ads or anything like that, it's pretty cut&dry, i'm not really an internet blogger kind of guy, but my teacher made me make a blog If you have an interest in music or physics, could you PLEASE read this and just give me your opinions on things? Right now only my physics teacher and another science teacher in the school read it and so it's hard to get more insight into my research. My physics teacher knows nothing whatsoever about playing or composing music, so he can't give as much input as I'd like. If you're not into the physics, just skip it I guess and give me some comments on what I wrote about like the "qualities" of chords and intervals and things like that... I mean, I say things like "the interval of the Tritone is very dissonant and sounds a bit sinister", but that's just one man's opinion. If you agree, awesome haha. But if you have another facet to add, I'd really love it. Thanks to all of you musicians/physicists! cya around Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tang991 Posted March 21, 2009 Author Share Posted March 21, 2009 Here's what I wrote the "actual" purpose of my research is, just to be a little more clear and concise: This is my attempt at merging the opposing viewpoints of music and physics into a unified understanding of how humans comprehend and appreciate sound. Our current way of making and composing mere sound into a coherent piece of music has not developed arbitrarily over the past millenia... it has been shaped by cultural developments, neurological/psychological factors, and of course the actual physical nature of sound. There is some sort of mental connection which we establish which allows us to convert a series of alternating pressures into qualities, dissonances, and emotions. My goal is to define this connection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I have got a horsey Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 I thought your blog was absolutely fascinating. I know pretty much nothing about the physics of sound waves, but your blog was really illuminating. The only comment I would have is just watch your grammar, some grammatical mistakes can make what you're saying a tad difficult to understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tang991 Posted March 22, 2009 Author Share Posted March 22, 2009 Hahahah yeah... lots of use of parenthesis and dashes and stuff. It's really hard because I'm writing the physics parts with the assumption that the reader knows nothing of music, so I have to interject some comments and such, and vice versa for the music parts. And grammar has never been my strong suit haha. Thank you for the compliment though! Hopefully more people will start reading it so I can get more insight and new perspectives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tang991 Posted April 7, 2009 Author Share Posted April 7, 2009 Just bumping... a few new posts to the blog, and I really need help haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlanetPage Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 Here's what I wrote the "actual" purpose of my research is, just to be a little more clear and concise: This is my attempt at merging the opposing viewpoints of music and physics into a unified understanding of how humans comprehend and appreciate sound. Our current way of making and composing mere sound into a coherent piece of music has not developed arbitrarily over the past millenia... it has been shaped by cultural developments, neurological/psychological factors, and of course the actual physical nature of sound. There is some sort of mental connection which we establish which allows us to convert a series of alternating pressures into qualities, dissonances, and emotions. My goal is to define this connection. http://www.experiencefestival.com/yoga_of_sound http://www.syta.org.au/Conf08%20Dayasagar%20Ananda.pdf http://www.soundhealingcenter.com/tables.html ....Perhaps, this can find "some" relevancy to your physics study. You might want to investigate ancient meditation techniques and their relationship to physics in general.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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