Drummers drum simply because that’s what drummers do. If they weren’t drumming, they would no longer be called drummers. If a plumber stops plumbing and begins drumming, I would say at that moment, he is a drummer. Now, if that plumber was locked inside a sound-proof room with no doors or windows, with a drum, then at any given point he may or may not be drumming. There’s no way to know. Thus, you can only assume that he is both a drummer and not a drummer at all times, simultaneously. That is the little known (i.e. fictional) Schrodinger’s Plumber Experiment.

Erwin Schrodinger, more known for his theoretical work with cats, was a Nobel-winning physicist. Richard Feynman was also a Nobel-winning physicist. Professor Feynman loved drumming. Thus, all mathematicians love drumming. QED.

Actually, since the 195os, mathematicians have been wondering whether it’s possible to hear the shape of a drum. The sound of something is determined by the frequency of its vibrations, which is then flavoured by the timbre of overtones and harmonics. With research papers bearing exciting titles such as “Can you hear the fractal dimension of a drum?”, or “The Riemann zeta-function and the one-dimensional Weyl-Berry conjecture for fractal drums” some very smart people have spent a lot of time on the question. Those smart people have more-or-less concluded that no, the eigenvalues of bi-axisymmetric manifolds cannot… er… no… a unique shape does not guarantee a unique sound.

So let’s talk round drums. Most drums are round, outside of theoretical cat-torturing land. It’s a membrane, stretched across one end of a hard round frame. Technically it’s called a membranophone, which we learned when we were learning about the origin of the kazoo. The acoustic properties of a drum are actually more complex than a guitar, despite being a much simpler instrument. A guitar string is one-dimensional (length) and so the vibrations are pretty simple. A drum head is two-dimensional (length and width) which leads to many more ways for it to vibrate and interfere with itself.

The smaller the drum, the tighter the skin, the faster the vibrations, the higher the pitch. A single-ply plastic drum head gives a bright springy sound, while rock stars prefer the flatter thud of a multi-ply skins. The body of the drum is also built to shape the sound as desired. Like blowing across the lip of a bottle, a large drum holds more air having a deeper resonance. A thicker wall will absorb more high-frequency waves, letting a lower frequency sound eminate.

There’s a lot of physics going on here. So clearly, if you want to grow up to be a rock star… stay in school, kids!

And thus, we conclude the Twelve Facts of Christmas. Hope you have a happy Twelfth Night celebration, and that you whoop it up Shakespearean style!

• Source: Hearing the shape of a drum – Wikipedia
• Source: Vibrations of a circular drum – Wikipedia

On the eleventh day of Christmas, we get pipers piping. Now, I must admit I feel a little sorry for musicians who have chosen the bagpipes as their instrument. The bagpipes get the brunt of a lot of jokes. I play the banjo. I hear a lot of these same jokes, but I can only imagine the extra multitude of jokes a bagpiper will hear. Though, most pipers probably can’t hear very well at all.

Loudness is measured in decibels. (technically, a Decibel is one-tenth of a Bel) Now, a decibel is not actually a specfic unit. You can’t have 1 decibel of something. Rather, it’s a mathematical measure of how far above (or below) a sound is from a set reference point. Zero decibels marks the quietest possible sound that can be heard. (the sound of a mosquito flying three metres away, for example) Regular conversation would be about 60 dB, while a lawnmower engine is about 107 dB.

The bagpipes measure in at about 100 dB as well, which puts them above the level at which sustained listening will cause hearing damage. Occupational safety guidelines would want to cap your bagpipe listening at about 2 hours per day. That probably won’t have a great impact on your playlists.

So what’s making all that racket? A standard set of highland pipes combines four vibrating, noise-making reeds, not unlike a quartet of clarinets. Three of these are drones, meaning they produce a single note all the while, un-changed by the player. When you hear a piper getting started, the drones are the first to kick in. They will continue to sound, without pause, until it’s time to pack up. (knowing that, you have to be really careful about asking a piper to play a little something)

The final pipe is the chanter. This is much more like a clarinet in that the piper blows air in the end, and covers holes along the length of it with his or her fingers to change the pitch. In this way, melodies are played on the chanter.

Now, the part that really separates this from the rest of the woodwinds is the bag. It’s a sack capable of holding air. Traditionally made from something like goat-skin, but now Gore-Tex (as in rain jackets) is the popular choice. Before one starts to play, this bag is pre-inflated with air. When you’re ready, squeezing the bag under the arm will send air out through the drone reeds. As you play the melody on the chanter, blowing a little extra air will re-inflate the bag as you go. An experienced piper has not trouble supplying the small amount of air needed to keep all the reeds buzzing.

So with all those drone pipes, what is perfect pitch for the bagpipes? Oh, about 15 feet with a good arm. (Well, I had to get one in)

The pipes, the pipes are calling me home, with just one more day left in the Twelve Facts of Christmas.

• Source: Bagpipe – Wikipedia

Imagine you were a visiting anthropologist from a different planet, on assignment to “live among the apes”. From the fresh outside perspective, many things about us would be fascinating. Our language, the multitude of sounds that emanate from our little naked-monkey heads, is rather amazing if you stop to think about it. From the corner of Hong Kong to the Scottish highlands, it seems an endless variety.

The meat of our speech is delivered via vowels. Vowels, by definition, are the sounds spoken without any build-up of air pressure. (if you think about a K, we start working on the sound slightly before it is released) As was pointed out to me at a singing workshop I attended, the vowels carry all the emotion in our speech. Comparing the expression of vowel sounds pinpoints the difference between the dramatic Italian tongue and the stuffy British.

As such, there are a lot of ways to bend the vowels to make each dialect unique. For example, Canadians are often characterized as pronouncing “about” like “a-boot”. The difference between the two is the position of the tongue. If you make an “ooo” sound, you can feel your tongue more curved, whereas the lazier “aaa” results in a flat tongue. (Which is likely why it’s the preferred sound by doctors during a check-up) So, if a Canadian actor wants to speak more American, they must learn to keep their tongue forward.

A pure vowel, one that sounds the same at the beginning as it does at the end, is called a monophthong. (mono = one, phthong = sound, pronounced mono-f-thong) Italian features a lot of solid monophthongs, which is what makes it such a great language for opera. A nice fat un-changing monophthong can be belted out with a lot of power and emotion.

Next up is the diphthongs, which start with one vowel sound then bend into a second sound. Not all languages have these. Going further along you get triphthongs (three sounds) which are rarer still, but do show up in English a fair bit. Let’s wrap our tongues around some examples.

“Ten”. When I say that, it’s a monophthong. T-eeeeee-n. My tongue stays perfectly still until I cut into the N. However, if my tongue was born in the state of Georgia in the southern USA, things would be different. T-eee-aaaa-n.  At least a diphthong, or more depending on the part of the south. Same language, same word, same letters, but the way the vowel is handled is a world of difference.

Now the word “fire”, which tends to be a triphthong no matter who’s saying it. Faaa-iiii-eeeerrr. Of course the three sounds are blended together smoothly, but the tongue is never at rest.

Getting back to the singing, it’s tough to sing the word “fire” with much emotion. Go on, give it a try. The shifting vowel sound seems to drain away the energy. To make it work, you’d probably want to hang on to a monophthong as long as possible. Faaaaaaaaaaa-i-er!

There you go. Linguistics plus a singing lesson. That would be two things you’ve learned today.

• Source: Vowels on Wikipedia
• And thanks to the workshop with Alan Marriot

Far too many people are quick to say “oh, I don’t like classical music”. Really, that’s a bit like saying “oh, I don’t like food”. There are so many different kinds of “classical” music that you probably just haven’t yet found the sort that appeals to your ears.

Most people use the phrase “classical music” as a general catch-all for any formal music composed in Europe before the 1900s, plus modern works for orchestras. That covers over 100o years worth of musical styles and development. One label is hardly appropriate.

The music aficionados have already broken things down into periods, based on what was in style at the time.

Medieval – 400 to 1100 – It’s hard to imagine how different the world was then. Science didn’t even exist. The primary music of the day, at least that which was recorded in history, was Gregorian chant.

Veni Creator Spiritus – Gregorian Chant

Renaissance - 1400 to 1600 – The most notable part of this period was that the music was in transition. This Palestrina motet (listen below) may seem pretty close to the Gregorian chant above, but the introduction of multiple parts, rather than everybody singing the exact same notes, marks the beginning of musical complexity that is a signature of the “classical” sound.

Quando veneris Domine

With the invention of the printing press, music began to spread far and wide making for the first famous composers. Also during the Renaissance, instruments were introduced into the mix as music became popular for social dances.

Baroque – 1600 to 1760 – The Baroque period was a flourish of music to match the general “enlightenment” going on in Europe. Many genres were invented including the concerto, sonata, and the opera. This period also brings us our first musical superstar; Johann Sebastian Bach.

Two-Part Invention nr.8 in F major – J. S. Bach

In my mind, Baroque music always stands out for its stiffness. The notes are very punctuated. This may primarily be a result of composers writing for the harpsichord, which wasn’t very good at holding notes.

Classical – 1730 to 1820 – I know I started by saying that “classical music” was a pretty wide-ranging term, but it’s also been given to this specific period, which is conveniently home to the most famous names of classical music. Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, and of course the rebel rock-star himself, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Sonata #14 in C Minor – Mozart

This piece combines elements from the old Baroque style with the new, more elegant, smoother style of melodies that mark this transition.

Romantic – 1815 to 1910 – Completing the move to the softer side of compositions the Romantic period is known for it’s beautiful music. The defining element of the period was composers working to put more emotion into the musical structures that had been laid out in the two previous periods. My personal favourite is Chopin.

Preludes #4, opus 28 – Chopin

Other big names of the period are Liszt, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and boy-oh-boy the Russians are coming! Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov make a name for the Russian music scene.

Beyond that we get into the 20th Century and Contemporary periods which, like most other things in this globalized world, lack any particular defining characteristics as a group.

Coming back to my original intent, I hope that this might inspire you to dip your toe into classical music a little. (particularly the Romantic and newer stuff) The OnClassical music label will gladly have you listen to their entire catalog for free online, perhaps enticing you to buy a high-quality CD of something you particularly like.

Do you have a favourite piece of classical music? Share by making a comment.

• Source: Classical Music – Wikipedia

Here we are again, and it’s time for me to throw down another mind-blowing, universe-alternating fact. Polka music is not German. Not even Bavarian. It originates from the Kingdom of Bohemia. So much for stereotypes.

Bohemia is the original name for what is now the Czech Republic. The lively dance music originated there around 1850. For the time it was a pretty serious dance craze that swept across the globe. The polka influenced musical cultures from Poland to Peru and gave birth to many new hybrid genres still alive today.

Now let’s get to the primary matter of the polka dot, which is a design pattern usually seen as large solid coloured circles on a white background. How did this rather plain circle become assiciated with the polka? Well, it seems to be purely a marketing ploy.

As the polka craze was conquering the hearts and toes of the people, many merchants were jumping on board selling “polka hats” and “polka curtain ties”. The new fabric design got dubbed
“polka dots” and the name has stuck for no good reason at all.

The word polka seems to come from the Czech word půlka, meaning “little half”. That accurately describes the baby steps that are the signature of the polka dance.

• Source: The Word Detective (almost halfway down the page)

Should I find myself at a fancy dinner party I cannot resist the urge to wet my finger and slide it around the rim of my wine glass. At least I would have trouble resisting the urge, if I were ever invited to such fancy dinner parties. The sound of a resonating wine glass is rather unique. If you could gather your friends around, each glass with varying amounts of liquid would produce different tones, resulting in an impromptu wine chorus. Again, I have to assume this would be a dinner party faux pas. However, at one time it was all the rage.

In 1761 the restless mind of Benjamin Franklin was attending a London concert featuring a wine glass soloist. The musician would have a large table of glasses in front of him arranged from low (empty) to high notes (nearly full of water). Franklin was an amateur musician himself (and in fact, believed full time professional musicians to be a parasite on society) so he put his engineering mind to work on solving the many practical problems of this wine glass arrangement.

First was the problem of tuning. As water evaporated, the notes from each glass would change. So he replaced the water glasses with crystal bowls. They would be permanently tuned like bells by their size and thickness. Next he collapsed the expansive table full of glass to something much more compact. All the crystal bowls were threaded on a long pole, the smaller bowls nesting inside the larger (not quite touching) to create an icicle-like arrangement.

Now the whole stack of bowls was made to rotate much like an antique foot-powered sewing machine. If a moistened finger were to rest along the edge of a bowl, the lovely tone would ease its way out with hardly any effort. It allowed for the uniquely soothing sound of the crystal glasses, with the practicality of a harpsichord keyboard. In fact, that’s what it was first called… the glassychord.

Soon after in his letters, Benjamin Franklin officially dubbed his creation the armonica, borrowing from the Italian word for harmony, and it is that name that stuck. (sometimes anglicised as “glass harmonica“)

There was nothing else that sounded like the armonica. It caught the fancy of Amadeus Mozart, who composed multiple pieces for the instrument. Alas, the only reason the armonica was largely lost to history was the matter of volume. As concert halls replaced parlours, instrument builders had to squeeze out more volume. Harpsichords became pianos, lutes turned into guitars, but the armonica could not get any louder.

According to the author of my source, there are only about a dozen armonica players in the world today. He should know. He’s one of them.

Bonus non-fact: I don’t know if it still counts as new-age hokum when we’re talking 18th century, but the sound of the glass armonica was (still is?) believed to have healing powers. One account tells how Franklin was able to cure a Polish Princess (she had “melancholia”… a.k.a. “grumpy pants”) simply by hearing him play the armonica. Of course, modern doctors would probably prescribe the banjo.

• Source: The website of William Zietler – GlassArmonica.com – to see and hear the armonica in action be sure to check out his page of videos

When I visited Buffalo, NY I was given a souvenir kazoo. Since 1912, they’ve been the promised land of kazoo making. Well, technically it’s the tiny town of Eden, just south of Buffalo, that is home to the Original American Kazoo Company.

Just to be safe, I will back it up here and explain what a kazoo is. (they don’t always teach this important stuff in schools, ya know) It’s an instrument. About four inches long. Looks kinda like a submarine. You hum (don’t blow) in one end so a little piece of wax paper will buzz.

Interesting to note, it’s technically classified as a membranophone, which other than the kazoo is a group entirely made up of drums. The fact is the kazoo is really a wax paper drum, but instead of hitting it the vibration is produced by your humming.

While the kazoo as we know it is an American invention (circa 1840s in Georgia) the concept goes back much, much further. The ancient ancestor of the kazoo, called a mirliton, goes back to the dawn of human kind.

A hollowed bone or horn with a hole in the middle would replace the plastic tube, and a skin or… get this… spider egg sac membrane(!) would take the place of wax paper. It’s original use was for special effects. The shaman would use it to create the unusual sound of other-worldly voices in religious ceremonies.

We’ve come a long way from that to this…

This recording by The Mound City Blowers from 1923 was the first ever to include a kazoo, and it sold a million copies.

Since the 20s, nobody has given the kazoo much credit. Despite it’s mystical roots, it’s now relegated to the realm of a toy. The most action it’s seen in the last century was with a special appearance on Eric Clapton’s “Unplugged” album.

• Source: The Kazoo – Physics, History, and Musical Importance