Enrichment of Student Understanding of Acoustics through the Modernization of a Physics of Music Laboratory

音乐物理学是一门专门为音乐，音乐教育和音乐戏剧专业设计的课程，作为他们科学通识教育的一部分。该项目适应当前的声音实验，包括其他机构的音乐课程的物理元素，通过使用现代仪器来实现这些想法。学生使用计算机进行声音的可视化和分析，强调对音乐声音的质量或音色的定量测量。 这些实验使学生能够学习“是什么使不同的乐器发出不同的声音”。理解这一点的关键是提高学生对泛音和谐波谱的理解。 透过研究和测量不同乐器的声音谐波频谱，发展新的实验，以促进学生的批判性思维、解决问题的能力和创造力。这些实验使用计算机作为频谱分析仪，对各种乐器和人声的声音进行实时分析。 此外，共振和周围的乐器的响度空间分布进行了研究，而他们正在发挥。 使用该设备，开发了一个独立的声音物理模块，作为我们为其他专业（尤其是文科专业和教师）学生学习的新综合科学课程的一部分。这些实验的细节可以在课程实验手册中找到，在专业会议上传播，并在网络上访问。 通过这一项目，建立了一个关于音乐物理课程和实验室的信息交流网站。

Physics of Music is a course especially designed for music, music education, and music theater majors, as part of their general education in science. This project adapts current sound experiments to include elements of physics of music courses from other institutions, implementing these ideas through the use of modern instrumentation. Students use computers in the visualization and analysis of sounds emphasizing quantitative measurement of the quality or timbre of musical sounds. These experiments enable students to learn "what makes different musical instruments sound differently". The key to understanding this is to advance student understanding of overtones and harmonic spectra. New experiments are developed to promote the students' critical thinking, problem-solving abilities and creativity by studying and measuring harmonic spectra of musical sounds from a variety of musical instruments. The experiments use computers as spectrum analyzers for real-time analysis of sounds from various musical instruments and the human voice. In addition, resonance and the spatial distribution of loudness around musical instruments is studied while they are being played. Using this equipment, a stand-alone Physics of Sound module is developed as part of our new integrated science course of student learning for other majors especially liberal arts majors and teachers. Details of these experiments are available in a course laboratory manual, disseminated at professional meetings, and accessible on the web. A clearing-house website on Physics of Music courses and laboratories is made available through this project.