One Stringed Boy
This class is Light, Sound and Time, and we’re on the second unit, Sound. We’ve been studying sound and how we interact with it. We went to the Chicago Hearing Society, which might seem strange, but it helped us see how others live without sound, and how they interact with the world in their own way. We also went to Darnton & Hersh Fine Violins, which had a concert hall in the lower floors, which was really cool to see and ignited my passion for music all over again. I was most proud of how many questions I had and how I interacted with the material. This is how my diddley works, so enjoy!
One Stringed Boy, AR, 2023
This project is combining all we’ve learned, from sound waves to standing waves, from learning the speed of sound and much more to create a diddley bow. A diddley bow is a one string instrument, similar to guitars, that you can make using a guitar string, a piece of wood, some screws or nails, and a can! We made these to demonstrate the principles we’ve been learning throughout the terms in a physical wave. It’s also because being able to make your own instrument is pretty cool.
By strumming or plucking the one string, you make vibrations that then resonate through the can. To create different sounds, you’d hold down the string at various points, making the vibrations shorter and sound more sharp.
My diddley bow demonstrates the idea of sound waves because it is capable of producing sound waves. Although it is a rudimentary instrument, it is capable of producing sounds that can resemble full instruments. Sound waves also correlate to things like the sound barrier and how we can break the sound barrier. There’s echoes as well, using sound waves and walls. It would also represent the Doppler Effect, as if I was moving towards you while strumming this diddley bow (which would probably never happen), the waves would start to bunch up at the front, causing you, the observer in front of me, to hear them at a higher pitch. If you were behind me. however, you'd hear the same sound at a lower pitch, as the waves would be more spaced out.
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One Stringed Boy sketch, AR, 2023
Height by battery: 1.5in
Height by can hole: 1.5in
Distance from battery to front of can: 13.5 in
Cylinder radius: 1.5625 in
Cylinder height: 4.625 in
Open note frequency: 58 Hz
Using the cylinder volume formula, I did, 3.14*1.5625^2*4.625 to get 35.455in^3.
Harmonics for One Stringed Boy, AR, 2023
The approximate pitch of my diddley bow was around 58 Hz. Using the standard speed of sound (343 m/s), I divided it by my frequency to get 5.91m. To get the 2nd harmonic frequency, all I had to do was double my base frequency, getting 116 Hz. The wavelength for that is 2.95m. For the 3rd and 4th harmonic frequencies, all I had to do was triple and quadruple the base frequency for the respective ones. For the 3rd harmonic, I got 174 Hz, and for the 4th I got 232 Hz. For their wavelengths, the 3rd’s is 1.97m and the 4th’s is 1.47m.
If I was to do this again, I would definitely bring my materials on the first day of building so I’d have more time. Besides that, I would want to try a different string for my diddley bow, as the string I used had a pretty low pitch (also was pretty hard to pluck). Also, I’d want to try a different board so I could possibly use the string’s full length.
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