There’s Even More to Playing the Piano
Chapter 23 - A Bit of Science
Musical instruments and voices set the air vibrating. This sets our ear drums vibrating. Depending on the quality of the sound, we interpret this as speech, noise or music. It is amazing how much detail and meaning we can derive from the complex three-dimensional vibrations that reach our ears. Sound waves are longitudinal waves. They are patterns of varying air pressure. The diagram below shows a moment in time as a longitudinal wave passes along a Slinky® spring: It is, perhaps, easier to understand sound by considering the transverse waves of a string: The...
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