When teaching musical acoustics to undergraduates, some have difficulty understanding how acoustical principles are related to music production. These difficulties are mitigated by using simple physical models and employing active learning activities. Three models are particularly helpful: mass-spring systems, string and tube resonances, and Helmholtz resonators. Students can gain hands-on experience with these models in both personal and guided laboratory experimentation. Examples of both types of experiments are provided to illustrate how they enable students to better understand the acoustics of musical instruments. These active learning activities highlight similarities and differences between the different families of musical instruments. The active learning activities are particularly impactful when students write about their experiences using proper acoustical terminology. The resulting understanding of acoustical principles enhances music education.
In attaining a degree in music, education on musical acoustics is multidisciplinary. Musical acoustics contains specialized knowledge, history, methodology, and practices, yet music itself is interdisciplinary. Ideally, acousticians recognize and validate that music is scientific and so, turn a blind eye or pay little attention to interdisciplinary physical music (i.e., migrating from music to musical acoustics). This paper examines the critical fault line erupting beneath the structural foundations of music through musical acoustics to navigate questions seldomly asked. These questions include–who should teach interdisciplinary physical music, e.g., music and mathematics, musical acoustics, psychoacoustics, what are the sets of curriculum standards and evaluation procedures suitable for the inter-multidisciplinary physical music. Finally, the paper proposes the reason why these paths are seldom crossed and provides a solution: a psychoacoustic approach to mathematical music theory as conduit to the intersection of fields with concepts traversing many disciplines.
Through mathematical representation (beat-class theory) of embodied acoustics (psychoacoustics) the predominance of the musical tradition of the Ikoro drum with the Igbo’s can be traced from the past, into the present and forecasted into the future. The Ikoro music tradition has been viewed as an integral and indispensable part of Igbo culture at large (Onwubiko and Neilsen, 2019). The major musical instruments that accompany most Igbo music are percussional, such as, ichaka (beaded-gourd rattle), okpokolo (wooden claves), and igba (membrane drum) and are characterized by successions of rhythmic interchange unlimited to interesting pitch, timbre, rhythm and meter by employing shifted accents, non-accented rhythms and syncopations. In order to understand Ikoro music located in the listener’s experience (embodied psychoacoustics), we demonstrate how mathematical music theory (beat-class theory) provides the means to articulate the “mind and body” response to the stimulus of sound. By examining the aural tradition of Ikoro music of the Igbo’s through visualizations and sonifications of beat-class theory using ski-hill graphs and circular cyclic graphs, “hidden” musical structures are revealed which possess significant cultural significance.
Common in the eastern parts of Nigeria among Igbos, the oja is a Nigerian wooden flute. More like a whistle with its rich sharp tone, the oja is an end blown flute about 14–16 cm long with a narrowed, hollowed cavity running down its entire length and another across its width. These form three holes that can be covered in various combinations with the fingers of both hands, giving the flute a range of about a sixth or a seventh depending on the master player. The mouthpiece is “U” or “V” shaped. With the three holes, it is expected that there would be three distinct pitches produced from the “oja” but more than three tones can be heard or sounded. This paper showcases the construction of oja flute, and presents preliminary studies on how the sixth can be realized. Pictorials, data, and videos of practical experience are presented to support the theoretical discourse.
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