Musical Instrument Blog #2

1. How is sound produced by this instrument (now that you know more about sound, please try to refer specifically to the energy transfer and vibrations)?
- The sound is produced by strumming the strings of the ukulele creating a vibration. It is echoed by having a decent sized hole on the body of the ukulele rightl beneath the strings, so the vibration that each string makes is echoed.

2. Based on your understanding, how are you changing the pitch? What physical characteristics are important in this instrument?
- I will be changing the pitch by changing the tension of each string (loosening the string or tightening the string). By doing this the strings will change pitch and be either lower or higher depending on how I change the tension. On ukuleles there is a part located at the top of the neck (big long part) that has fours tuners. Where you basically tie each string to one of the tuners and when you want to change the tension you simply turn the tuner left or right depending on how hig or low you want the pitch.

3. What materials will you actually be using for your instrument and why? How will you play your instrument? What is your plan for constructing the instrument?
- The materials I will mainly need are:
- A box of some sort that I can cut a hole in and use as the body of the ukulele
- A longer piece of wood that I can use as a neck
- Small pieces of something that I can use for the frets
- Another piece of wood to put the tuners on so I am able to change the pitch
- Four tuners
- Four ukulele strings (not four of the same, one of each chord)

I believe that is basically all I will need material wise. Since a ukulele is very small each material does not have to be big, since I want to keep it small. So I will have to look up the measurements of a ukulele so I can know how big the materials have to be. I will simply play this instrument by strumming the strings, creating the sound, while holding down my fingers on the strings on different frets creating different notes.

4. What outstanding questions do you still have?
- Why is there specific strings for a ukulele and how does it make a difference?
- How is it that the hole on the body of the ukulele creates the echo for the strings? and how big, depth wise, would I have to make the hole for the echo to work?
- How do you know how far apart to put the frets? and how does this change the notes and chord of the strings?