Extra strings for new sounds.You've heard of pianos, violins, and guitars. Now, make room for the tritare (rhymes with guitar). Canadian mathematicians have invented the new music-making device by tweaking tweaking Vox populi Fine-tuning to produce optimal results the standard concept of a stringed instrument stringed instrument, any musical instrument whose tone is produced by vibrating strings. Those whose strings are plucked with the finger or a plectrum include the balalaika, banjo, guitar, harp, lute, mandolin, zither, the sitar of India and Pakistan, the koto of . Instead of having strings that stretch between two points, the tritare has strings that are attached to the instrument at more than two points. Picture, for example, a Y-shaped string, anchored at its three endpoints. When played, the instrument produces an eerie sound that challenges the ears with complicated echoes and vibrations. The tritare looks like a guitar with two extra necks. One of the necks has thin crossbars, or frets, that mark places where pushing on strings creates desired pitches. The other two necks are unfretted. Plucking Plucking describes the process of removing human hair, animal hair, or a bird's feathers by mechanically pulling the item from the owner's body. In humans, this is done for personal grooming purposes, usually with tweezers. An epilator is a motorised hair plucker. , strumming, or bowing a normal guitar string creates mathematically related sounds called harmonic overtones. For the most part, a string vibrates at a specific, standard rate (or frequency), say 440 times per second, which is the note A. But it also vibrates at twice that rate, creating a sound called the second harmonic. The string's vibration at three times the basic rate is called the third harmonic, and so on. Playing the tritare generates harmonic overtones, but it also creates sounds that are nonharmonic. Nonharmonic frequencies fit in between the harmonic frequencies. Harmonics sound simple, familiar, and pleasant to our ears. Nonharmonics, which are often produced by gongs, bells, and other percussion instruments This is a list of percussion instruments. Tuned percussion
The researchers, who are at the University of Moncton in New Brunswick New Brunswick, province, Canada New Brunswick, province (2001 pop. 729,498), 28,345 sq mi (73,433 sq km), including 519 sq mi (1,345 sq km) of water surface, E Canada. , say that the tritare's sound is beautiful and has lots of potential for musical expression. "Sounds which are richer and less safe harmonically ... provide inspiration and ways to musically express different things," says Samuel Gaudet, one of the inventors. Other researchers are more skeptical. "To my ears [the tritare] just sounded like a badly out-of-tune instrument," says acoustics specialist Bernard Richardson of Cardiff University Cardiff University (Welsh: Prifysgol Caerdydd) is a leading university located in the Cathays Park area of Cardiff, Wales. It received its Royal charter in 1883 and is a member of the Russell Group of Universities. It has an annual turnover of £315 million. in Wales Wales, Welsh Cymru, western peninsula and political division (principality) of Great Britain (1991 pop. 2,798,200), 8,016 sq mi (20,761 sq km), west of England; politically united with England since 1536. The capital is Cardiff. . Someday, more complicated string instruments This is a list of string instruments categorized according to the technique used to produce sound, followed by a list of string instruments grouped by country or region of origin. might challenge your sense of music even more. Will you be a fan? Check the following Web page, where you'll find some samples of such sounds to help you decide: www.acoustics.org/press/151st/Leger.html.--E. Sohn http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20060607/Note3.asp From Science News for Kids June 7, 2006. |
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