Horrible Science: First Honk of the Proms

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How is sound made?

Diagram showing how sound travels. On the right, a yellow trumpet produces curved blue lines labelled vibration. These create a wavy line labelled soundwave moving towards an ear on the left. Inside the ear, the soundwave reaches the eardrum.

Sound happens when something vibrates. A vibration is a quick back-and-forth movement that creates waves in the air, which our ears can detect as sound.

In musical instruments such as trumpets, the player’s lips vibrate to create sound. The faster the vibrations, the higher the pitch.

Louder sounds happen when the vibrations are stronger.

Diagram showing how sound travels. On the right, a yellow trumpet produces curved blue lines labelled vibration. These create a wavy line labelled soundwave moving towards an ear on the left. Inside the ear, the soundwave reaches the eardrum.
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Watch: First honk of the proms

It’s nearly time for the proms, but will Grace be able to get her vibrations right and give a star performance?

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What makes one instrument sound different from another?

Image of Horrible Science character making a straining face while farting in an orchestra. She is wearing a green dress. The Horrible Science logo is in the bottom left.

Every musical instrument has unique properties that affect the sounds it produces. These properties control how the vibrations behave, which changes what we hear.

Some properties describe the instrument that makes it and others describe the sound produced.

The material an instrument is made from is one of the properties that can affect its sound. Instruments made from metal, wood or plastic can sound different, even if they are the same shape, because different materials vibrate in different ways.

Some examples of the properties of sound are pitch and volume.

  • Pitch is used to describe how high or low a sound is. Faster vibrations create higher-pitched sounds, while slower vibrations make lower-pitched sounds.
  • Volume describes how loud or quiet a sound is. Stronger vibrations produce louder sounds.

In brass instruments, the player’s lips act like a reed (a thin piece of material that vibrates to produce sound in a woodwind instrument) vibrating air through the instrument. In these instruments valves or slides can change the pitch by making the air travel longer or shorter distances.

The length of the vibrating column of air inside the instrument affects the pitch of the sound it makes:

  • a longer column makes a lower sound

  • a shorter column makes a higher sound

Image of Horrible Science character making a straining face while farting in an orchestra. She is wearing a green dress. The Horrible Science logo is in the bottom left.
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Horrible Science fact

Humans can hear pitches from as low as 20 vibrations per second up to as high as 20,000 vibrations per second … including farts!

Dogs can hear much higher pitches than humans – up to 45,000 vibrations per second! This is why they can hear high-pitched whistles, but we can’t.

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Quiz

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How to use Horrible Science in the classroom

If you're looking to bring energy, humour and curriculum-aligned content into your science lessons, Horrible Science might just be your new secret weapon.

How to use Horrible Science in the classroom
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