Build A Musical Band Project

By Alex Lozada, Chris Griggy, Maddie Cinelli, and Tyler Leighton

Introduction:
For this project, we were tasked with building three instruments; a wind, a chime, and a string
instrument. Then we had to explain how each of them work. The three instruments we decided to
build were a guitar for the string instrument, a xylophone for the chime instrument, and a trumpet
for the wind instrument.. These instruments all have to be able to play the notes A4, B4, C4, D4,
E4, F4, and G4. We were also tasked with playing a song we made or an existing song with our
instruments.

Guitar:
A guitar works by plucking the strings with your fingers, which causes the strings to vibrate. The
vibrations in the string create sound, and the soundbox in the guitar amplifies the sound. The
soundbox is made out of thin wood, so it vibrates more due to its rigidity. The tension as well as
the length of the string determines the frequency and wavelength. Each string plays a different
note. The shorter strings have a higher frequency because they have a shorter wavelength, and
the longer strings have a lower frequency because they have a longer wavelength. To tune the
guitar and get each string to play the right note you tighten or loosen the strings. This changes
the tension of the string. Changing the tension of the strings changes the frequency and
wavelength of the instrument.
Xylophone:
A xylophone works by striking the metal or wood bar of a xylophone with a mallet. This action
creates a vibration that releases sound waves. Under each bar there is a resonator that amplifies
the sound of the note. Xylophone bars are supported by felt, synthetic, rubber, wood, and other
materials over resonators. The size, length, and thickness of the bars determines what frequency
and wavelength that will be produced. Our xylophone is a lot smaller and is crude compared to a
normal one. It also has only eight notes and has no resonators. Since, our xylophone doesn't have
a resonator, I suspended them in the air by using string so that it can vibrate freely and make a
louder sound. The bars are also a lot thinner than they should be but the length and width are
normal. The bars on our xyphone are made of aluminum. We did this because we wanted to
stand out but, we also did it since aluminum is more rigid than our other options and more rigid
materials vibrate louder and clearer. Every material has a different natural frequency, which is
why material choice is very important.

Trumpet:
A trumpet works by making a buzzing sound into a mouthpiece which vibrates the air creating a
deep noise. Most trumpets have a tube that is bent to give it its’ sound. Our instrument doesn’t
have the bend but works the same way a trumpet does. We found the length of the notes by
dividing the wave length by 4. We divided by 4 because the pressure is highest at the end of the
trumpet that you blow in, and the length it takes to return to normal atmospheric pressure is ¼ of
a wavelength. We found the wavelength of the notes through this
site(http://pages.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html) . We cut the pipe to be 35 cm and the following
length for these notes. (17.46cm = B4/ 19.6cm = A4/ 22cm = G4/ 24.69cm = F4/ 26.165cm =
E4/ 29.37 = D4/ 32.75 = C4). Our instrument compared to an actual trumpet has much less
tubing and a pvc construction compared to brass construction. In order to create different sound,
we have to drill holes in different locations on the trumpet. We found where to drill the holes by
dividing the wavelength of each note by 4, and using cm as our metric unit.

Notes Guitar Xylophone Trumpet Frequency Wavelength

C4 65.9cm 22cm 32.75cm 261.63 hz 131.87cm

D4 58.74cm 20.7cm 29.37cm 293.66 hz 117.48cm

E4 52.33cm 19.7cm 26.165cm 329.63 hz 104.66cm

F4 49.39cm 19cm 24.69cm 349.23 hz 98.79cm

G4 44cm 18cm 22cm 392 hz 88.01cm

A4 39.2cm 17cm 19.6cm 440 hz 78.41cm

B4 34.9cm 16cm 17.46cm 493.88 hz 69.85cm

C5 33cm 15cm 523.25 hz 65.93cm

How We Got Our Numbers

How did we get our numbers? For the trumpet, we determined where to drill the holes was by
dividing the wavelength of a note by 4, and using centimeter as our metric unit. We found the
string length for the guitar by dividing the wavelength by 2. We cut a bar to a specific length
then used the multipliers 0.9428, 0.8944, 0.8660, 0.8165, 0.7746, 0.7303, and 0.7071 to find the
next bar length.