The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS
PHYCS 406
The Acoustical Physics of Music
Professor Steven Errede (3-0074/serrede@illinois.edu)
Lecture: 12:30-1:50 Tu & Th 6105 ESB CRN # 56676
Lab L1: 11am-2 pm Fri 6105 ESB CRN # 56770
Lab L2: 2-5 pm Fri 6105 ESB CRN # 56771
Credit: 4 hrs / 1 Unit
Course Overview/Course Summary:
This course will investigate the physics of all kinds of music and musical instruments,
the generation and propagation of sound waves in various media, and acoustics in general.
Topics covered will include: Sound waves and propagation of sound waves, complex vibrations
and resonance phenomena, perception of sound, tone quality, frequency and pitch, musical
intervals, scales, tuning & temperament, all kinds of musical instruments, all kinds of
music, auditorium and room acoustics, sound transducers, microphones, loudspeakers and
loudspeaker enclosure design.
Course Prerequisites:
Prerequisites: PHYCS 211, 212 and 213/214; or consent of instructor.
Course Goals:
There are multiple purposes associated with teaching this "hands-on" course:
- To teach students about the physics associated with music and musical instruments and the rich scientific, technological and cultural history associated with their development.
- The physics of human hearing (a.k.a. "psycho-acoustics") is also a fascinating subject. We discuss this subject in the lectures for this course, as it pertains to the rich and complex sounds associated with music and musical instruments. We also experimentally investigate various aspects of the nature of human hearing in the lab portion of this course.
- To teach students the same physics that they would learn in taking other physics courses, and with the same technical rigor, such as differential equations, Fourier analysis and complex variables. However here in this course, precisely because it is a lecture-lab course, the students, by being actively involved, literally in a hands-on way, wind up learn this same material much more easily, much more naturally, and at a much deeper level, since they can quantitatively see, touch and hear precisely how the mathematics associated with these physics topics connects to the "real world" of e.g. vibrating strings on a guitar, vibrations of the guitar itself, and also e.g. quantitative details of how electric guitar pickups work, or e.g. quantitative details of how loudspeakers work.
- For many of the lectures we will bring in a musical instrument to explicitly demo them for the class, both as visual and auditory aids to complement/enhance the lecture material. We also actively encourage students taking the class to bring in their own instruments, if they are of interest. We may also occasionally play passages of our own (or student's) favorite songs to better illustrate a point being discussed in lecture, or to explicitly demonstrate it in class.
- In the lab portion of the course, we train students how to use modern scientific electronic equipment, to carry out scientific experiment in order to make physical measurements, e.g. to learn something about the nature of a musical instrument. Students also gain familiarity with, and learn how to use e.g. digital recorders, microphones, digital oscilloscopes, function generators, digital multimeters, spectrum analyzers, and learn the techniques uses and benefits of computer-based data acquisition systems. We train students in the building of various electronic circuits, and teach them the basics about the properties and uses of various electronic components - such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, rectifiers (vacuum and solid-state), triode, tetrode and pentode vacuum tubes, transistors, FET's, analog and digital integrated circuits, power and output transformers, the use of DSP's for all manner of audio signal processing applications, etc. We also teach students the basics of power supply design, and vacuum tube and solid-state amplifier designs. We discuss in the lectures the full spectrum of sound effects and explore these in the lab portion of the course.
- Each student decides on their own project for the semester, sometimes with the help of the instructor and/or lab TA. The student then works on his/her project in the lab portion of the course, gives an oral presentation to the class at mid-term, and a final oral presentation at the end of the semester, and a final written report, which we post on our P406 web page. These presentations are always great fun, since each of the students demo their projects to the rest of the class!
- All activities (lecture and lab) associated with this course will be posted on the P406 web page, so that any/all people who may be interested in this material can have access to this information, and hopefully to provide some form of interactivity with the world-wide community of people with a common set of interests.
