Put your fingers gently on your throat and hum a quiet tune. What do you feel under your fingers?
Today we will find out what sound really is, and we will see the wobble that makes it.
That buzz in your throat is a vibration: a quick back-and-forth wobble.
If sound starts with a wobble, how could we make that wobble something we can see, not only feel?
We will use a drum with a little dry rice on top.
Talk with a partner. What do you think will happen to the rice when we tap the drum? Why?
First, Station 1 with your group. Station 2 comes next.
Station 1: drum and rice
Sprinkle a little dry rice on the drum. Tap once gently, then a little more firmly. Watch the rice. Feel the top of the drum with one finger after a tap.
Say what wobbled and what you saw or felt. You will draw one station later.
Look at the drum on the board. The picture shows the wobble you could feel on the real drum, and how that wobble spreads out toward an ear.
The drum skin is the source: the thing that is wobbling and making the sound.
Sound is what we hear when that wobble reaches our ears.
What is the drum skin doing when we hear a sound?
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