Others Like “Take a Musical Step Back in Time: Make Your Own Phonograph from Everyday Items” (top 20 results)

In this project you'll learn how to make a piezoelectric pickup for acoustic guitar using inexpensive components. You can then connect your acoustic guitar to an amplifier, and record your own music. If you are interested in electronics and like playing acoustic guitar, this could be the perfect project for you. Read more

The renowned pianist Vladimir Horowitz once said, "The most important thing is to transform the piano from a percussive instrument into a singing instrument." In this project, you will learn how you can make piano strings sing using sympathetic vibrations. Find out which notes make another one sing the longest by measuring their sound intensities using a smartphone equipped with a sensor app. Read more

Here is a riddle for you: name an instrument that you play with your hands but never actually touch. Have you guessed the answer? It is a theremin! This unusual instrument makes sound without anyone touching it. How does a theremin work? It has an antenna that can detect the player's hand nearby, and as they move their hand around the theremin, the sound it makes changes based on the hand's position. In this music science project, you will get to use your own mini theremin to investigate… Read more

This is a great project for a musician who is interested in the physics of stringed instruments. If you've ever played an acoustic guitar, you may have noticed that picking a single string can make one or more of the other (unpicked) strings vibrate. When this happens, it's called sympathetic vibration. What intervals lead to the strongest sympathetic vibrations? Find out for yourself with this project. Read more

Have you ever seen a great movie and then rushed out and bought its soundtrack? Did the soundtrack bring back the thrill of an action chase? Or the sadness one of the movie's characters felt? Music is a big part of the movie experience. It intensifies the emotions in scenes so that you do not just jump when that hairy spider comes around the corner, you scream! In this music science fair project, you will find out if happy, sad, scary, and action scenes in movies use music with the same… Read more

Do you love to listen to your MP3 player while you're exercising, or listen to songs on the Internet? The relatively recent development of MP3 technology has made it possible to take a stack of CD's and store them on a device no bigger than a deck of cards. How does the MP3 format squeeze all those CD's down so well, and can it go too far? Try this music science fair project to find out! Read more

If you like music and musical instruments, here is a project that might resonate with you! This is a fun experiment to investigate materials that could be used to build acoustic musical instruments. You can use a music box mechanism and a sound level meter to see which materials make the best soundboards. Read more

Have you ever bitten into a thick, fragrant casserole and tasted the layers of flavor? Or maybe you've licked of a vanilla ice cream cone and thought, "This is so pure, simple, and refreshing!" These observations about the taste of the food are also comments on its texture—the casserole is complex and thick, and the vanilla ice cream cone is simple and thin. You might not realize it, but sound can also have texture. In this music science fair project, you'll learn how to "taste" the… Read more

Have you ever blown across a bottle's top and made a pleasant, resonant sound? If so, have you wondered how that note is made exactly? A bottle is actually what is called an air cavity, also known as a Helmholtz resonator. Ocarinas are examples of musical instruments of this type. In this science project, you will use bottles to investigate how the volume of air in the cavity affects the pitch of the note that it makes. All you need are some bottles, water, a ruler, and a chromatic tuner. Read more

Do you enjoy singing contests like American Idol? Well, male songbirds have their own version of a singing competition that has been going on for thousands of years, and classical musical composers have been taking notes! In this music science fair project, you'll investigate the different instruments composers have used to imitate or create impressions of bird songs and bird calls. Read more