Does that make a difference? How about plastic cups? Paper cups and foam cups don’t work. Switch the glass jars to ceramic mugs.Does a plastic rod create a different pitch from wood or metal? Why? Try using different materials to tap a jar.This will allow you to play many more familiar songs. Add extra jars to create a full musical scale.You can also compose your own songs! If you want to be able to play one of your songs again, just use crayons to write down the colors of the notes as you play them. Try to figure out simple songs like Mary Had a Little Lamb, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Hot Cross Buns.

Now start playing! You can create beautiful music with only five notes. No need to stir- the swirling colors are really pretty and will eventually mix themselves thoroughly. Once your jars are in tune, you can add a few drops of food color to the water. Your ears will probably tell you if a note is way out of tune! Add or subtract water, a little bit at a time, from each of your jars until the tones sound like a scale. The jar with the least water has the highest pitch. What is the relationship between the amount of water in the jar and the pitch of the tone? You should notice that the more water in the jar, the lower the pitch. This is because the sound waves are altered as they pass through the water. The empty jars made the same tone as each other, so the different water level causes the tones to change. What do you notice? Each jar now produces a different tone. Fill each of the remaining jars with less water than the glass before it. Without vibration, there is no sound to hear!įill the first jar most of the way up with water. What happened? By touching the jar, you stopped the vibration. Gently tap one jar, then immediately touch it with your other hand. Your brain interprets the wave as a musical note. Those vibrations travel through the air and into your ear. When you tap a jar, it begins to vibrate. They should each make the same musical tone. In space, where there is no air, sound can’t travel!Įxperiment with sound by making your own musical jars. But sound can only travel to our ears if it has something to travel through, such as air, water, or other materials. When someone speaks to us, our ears feel the vibrations and our brains interpret them into words almost instantaneously.

The volume and the pitch of the sound you hear depends on the source and how much energy it produced. Your brain interprets that sound energy into words, music, or other noises. These vibrations force the air around them to vibrate too, making waves, until eventually even the air inside your ears begins to vibrate. But have you ever stopped to think about what sound actually is? Sound is the energy that things make when they vibrate.

Sesame street mary had a little lamb