Jam session!

As a part of our course work we were assigned to create a video to accompany our topic. The idea of this video was to entertain you and maybe teach you something that you didn't already know about sound. Please let us know what you think about Sound of Science's video debut!

Some key terms to make note of are frequency, amplitude, sound waves, timbre.

Sound Waves - They are basically sine waves caused by the vibration of an object that the enter the ear with varying frequency and amplitudes. It's what everyone listens to everyday.
Frequency - How high the noise sounds, or pitch.This is effected by how close together the sound waves are. Higher frequency (faster) causes higher pitched sounds.
Amplitude - How loud something sounds. This is caused by the height of the sine wave; higher amplitude waves are louder than lower amplitude.
Timbre - The quality that differentiates one sound from another that has the same pitch (frequency) and loudness (amplitude).

soundwave not the transformer

And now for the fun part!

background music by: Antoine Smith

Hope you enjoyed our Video and learned something new, for more information on fun sounds with beer bottles check out this link

Mind, Body, Music!

Even after watching the movie Legally Blonde for the umpteenth time I still laugh when Elle Woods explains how her client, a queen of workout videos is innocent: "Exercise releases endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don't shoot their husbands, they just don't!"

This got me to thinking if exercise makes people feel happy, but exercising in silence is pretty awful- at least in my world,  then listening to music has to make working out better (somehow)! And as it just so happens various other people must have had the same thought.

Costas Karageorghis and David-Lee Priest from Brunel University studied the affects music has on exercising after learning that the 2007 New York Marathon had banned participants from listening to music during the race. Karageorghis and Priest determined that "...music can influence preparation and competitive performances: dissociation, arousal regulation, synchronization, acquisition of motor skills, and attainment of flow." 

Charles Emery from Ohio State University did similar research and determined "Listening to music may influence cognitive function through different pathways in the brain. The combination of music and exercise may stimulate and increase cognitive arousal while helping to organize cognitive output." Emery has also done testing to see the effects different types of music!

So while you consider the impacts of music on the mind and body check out this sweet video! It is a pretty good argument for the "acquisition of motor" skills by music!