LA TRAVIATA (VERDI)

INSTRUMENTS

http://www.datadragon.com/education/instruments/strings.shtml

LEARN ABOUT INSTRUMENTS

C MAJOR SCALE

SOUND QUALITIES

UNIT 1 SOUND QUALITIES

Concepts

1. Sound, noise and silence.
2. Sound qualities and its graphic representation: pitch, duration, intensity and timbre.

● SOUND.

-Sound is music.

-Sound is produced when an object or an instrument vibrates. For example, when you play a guitar, the strings vibrate and produce a sound or if you blew inside of a recorder, the air vibrates and produces sound, too.

-The sound waves move through air, water, wood etc.we can perceive these sound waves through our ear.

-Sound waves are regular and orderly.

● THE EAR

The ear is the sense that detects sounds.

Sound waves are perceived by the brain through the nerve cells in the auditory portion of the central nervous system.

Eardrum is an elastic membrane that vibrates when it perceives the sound waves and transmits the information to the brain. This sensation that we can perceive is the sound.

● Tuning fork
It is an acoustic resonator in the form of a U-shaped bar of elastic metal (usually steel). It is used for tuning the instruments in the orchestra.

● NOISE

-It's produced when there aren't vibrations(no sound no noise).

- Noise waves can travel by air, wood,water,etc.

-Noise waves are irregular.

- Some musicians use sound and noise in a musical composition.

-When there is a high level of noise is called noise pollution and the noise level meter is the machine used for measuring the noise level.

-Noise pollution affects our health and can produce hearing loss,stress,sleep disturbances,etc.

- The noise level accepted by the OMS (Organización Mundial de la Salud) is a daily average of 65dB.

Here you are some noise levels:

• Birds trilling....................................................................... 10dB
• Rumors of leaves of trees................................................ 20dB
• Normal conversation........................................................ 50dB
• Traffic................................................................................. 85dB
• Inside disco...................................................................... 110dB
• Motorbike without muffler............................................ 115dB
• A plane flying over the city............................................ 130dB
  

● SILENCE

- We can define the silence as the absence of sound or noise.

- Silence is produced when there aren’t vibrations.

- The musical creation is a combination of sound and silence.

THE SOUND QUALITIES AND ITS GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION

-The sound has four qualities:

1. Pitch:a sound can be low,medium or high;this quality is called PITCH and we represent in the score with musical notes(C,D,E,F,G,A,B).
2. Duration: a sound can be long or short; the quality is DURATION and we represent musical shapes and rest.
3. Intensity: a sound can be strong or faint, thgis quality is INTENSITY and we represent with dynamics.
4. Timbre: we can recognize voices and different sounds from different instruments.

● VOCALIZACIONES.

Llamamos así a una serie de ejercicios destinados a fortalecer y educar nuestra voz.