European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 25, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 stars and stripes sunday March 25 2007 from Tea my fast by Emty Dot attn 9 am my company More notes about instruments wind instruments wind instruments Are made out of special tubes musicians blow into a mouthpiece connected to the tube when the musician blows into the mouthpiece air vibrates inside the tube one Way musicians change the pitch is by changing How hard they blow into the instrument try this Experiment take an empty plastic pop bottle blow across l a the top what kind of sound do you get now blow harder did the sound jump to a higher pitch that is what happens when musicians blow on instruments such As trumpets try changing the size of the bottle do smaller bottles make different sounds this girl practices her French Horn when stretched out the tubing of a French Horn is about 11 feet Long this is about two to three times longer than the tubing of a trumpet the longer tubing allows the French Horn to play at a much lower pitch this student performs on a Bassoon a Reed instrument which is a Type of wind instrument in Reed instruments such As bassoons or clarinets the musician blows into a mouthpiece that holds a thin Reed a Reed can be made from a Plant Stem from Wood or from plastic the Reed vibrates when the musician blows into the instrument length and pitch with wind instruments the longer the tube is the lower the note is the Shorter the tube the higher the note in order to make very Low notes musicians need ext along tubes on their instruments but if the tubes of some instruments were stretched out Long enough the instruments would be too Long to play easily you might need to stand on something 12 feet tall to play a Horn so with instruments such As French horns the tube is coiled up when musicians press Down on a key they shorten the tube length this allows them to make higher notes musicians also control the pitch by controlling How tight their lips Are on the mouthpiece Drums musicians cannot control the pitch of drum notes As Well As they can with other instruments they do not control the notes by the Way they play on most Drums they control pitch by how1 the drum is set up there is a membrane stretched across the top of the drum when musicians tighten this the pitch is higher the musician tightens this before beginning to play so the drum produces the right sound one drum the Ket Cedrum has a pedal that allows the musician to tighten the membrane in the Middle of playing a piece singing try this Experiment sing a song put your hand lightly against the front of your neck while you Are singing do you feel the vibrations people have two vocal cords or vocal flaps inside their throats when singers want to sing a High note they tighten their vocal cords when they want to sing a lower note they loosen the vocal cords singers can control the and notes by controlling the shape of their Mouths and where they place their tongues the tone is How music sounds for example a tone could be Sweet or excited or shrill the mini Page thanks Mike Blakeslee Menc the National association for music education for help with this Issue to do look through your newspaper for notices and ads about musical performances in your area next week the mini Page is about Beatrix Potter the author of the tale of Peter Rabbit next week meet Beatrix Potter
