Incorporating local experts into a Physics of Music class

Abstract

The Physics of Music is a general education science class open to all students at Wake Forest University. A broad range of topics are covered: wave physics, hearing and the ear, the voice and singing, musical instrument function and performance (winds, strings, and percussion), room acoustics, and more. An instructor for such a course is not usually a master of all these areas. In this talk, I will describe how we engage some of our local experts (singers, instrumentalists, piano tuners, doctors) to enhance the student experience of learning about physics and music. Activities to incorporate their specialties into the class will also be described.

Introducing “Physics of music” to students using free software

“…The physics of music topics can be taught to any discipline or age group and it is possible to incorporate experts like musicians, instrumentalists, and doctors from the society to share their concepts (J. Dostal, 2017;J. A. Dostal, 2020).…”