Class notes: 31 October, 2019

Starting Sound

Why is sound important?  We have binaural hearing and can point to the direction of a sound without any practice.

How do you “close your earlids” when you go to sleep?  How do children learn to speak?   Leonard Bernstein’s experiments with making sounds like a child and how common those sounds might be across cultures.

Close your eyes after following links in this section. don’t worry about the visual details and information, this is learning to understand sound and signals.

Classes of sounds (one view)

Signals / alerts — short sounds that transfer information

Songs and patterns that transfer information over time

We have a history of using air raid sirens from WWI and WWII as a means to notify the population of an area of an event or condition.

  • air raid siren, dual pitch  — my borough uses one of these at 9:45pm to signal curfew hours for children.  The local volunteer fire department have a different one they use to alert volunteers to a fire.
  • tornado sirens used to notify a town/area of a possible tornado

Music and entertainment

Psychological effects of sound

Is it genetics that cause us to respond to the sound of a crying human baby?  Can you think of an “angry” noise?  A “happy” noise? a “relaxing” noise?

Sketches, Fritzing, and 3d models

Sketches from sound-class-1 (including one I DID NOT show in class) and Fritzing a speaker to a transistor.

3d printed air raid sirens.

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