(Credit: Amir Ganon)
Music is all around us. The hum of the wind, birds chirping to greet sunrise, and fingers tapping remind us that rhythm and sound are the pulse and beat of life itself.
People from around the world have used natural materials including stone and wood to make instruments, The Jerusalem Post reports. This practice dates back thousands of years. Now, a new exhibit at Jerusalem’s Bloomfield Science Museum, named “Tune In!,” connects history, science, and music, inviting participants to explore traditional, modern, and unconventional ways of making sound.
Ancient Flutes and Modern Synthesizers
Music-making has played a major role in cultures worldwide since ancient times, Music Observer explains. The oldest-known instrument is a 40,000-year-old flute made from a vulture bone.
Nowadays, electronic instruments, like the electric guitar and the synthesizer, have created new genres of music, while digital audio workstations allow musicians to create compositions through their very own computers. The Tune In exhibit allows visitors to test out both age-old and modern music-making techniques, as well as everything in between, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Making Music with Wood, Rocks, and Bottles
One highlight of the exhibit is the Lithophone, where visitors strike marble, limestone, and granite. Softer stones make a lower pitch, while harder ones produce higher pitches. According to Ancient Origins Magazine, stone instruments like these may be some of the oldest ever used, with roots dating back more than 10,000 years.
Visitors at the Tune In exhibit can also experiment with the Earth Xylophone, The Jerusalem Post reports. Here, visitors hit wood with mallets, producing different pitches depending on where they strike. This instrument may have roots in African tribes who preferred very rhythmic music.
The museum also has an interactive display where visitors can create music by hitting colorful bottles with a mallet. Bottles are filled with various amounts of water, with those filled with more water producing slower vibrations and lower sound.
In contrast, blowing into a bottle works differently. The top part creates tones, and the bottom row produces semitones like a piano, which allows you to play a favorite melody. The unconventional method was applied a century ago for classical pieces of music.
Modern Music Making
The Tune In exhibition also allows guests to explore modern methods of music production. At the Bit Byte Beat, visitors put paper strips through an electronic machine to produce sounds.
At the Drumming Table, visitors put on headphones and drum on a rubber surface. A hidden sensor picks up their taps, producing melodies.
The Picture Sounds Table has graphics that, when tapped, make different noises. At the Electric Sound Studio, visitors can use their fingers to move up and down a strip, back and forth under a lamp. They can also experiment with distance from an antenna and press on rubber circles. The distance and pressure of the touch impact the creation of sound.
Everything in Between
Tune In allows visitors to explore unconventional and kinesthetic forms of making music. For example, at the Weight-Powered Monochord, visitors sway back and forth and pluck a string, creating different melodies by moving their bodies.
In the Walking Bass exhibit, visitors walk on a line of a string and can make it shorter or longer to change the tone. Another person plucks the string, producing a series of notes. The exhibit encapsulates the magic and sound of stringed instruments like the guitar, violin, bass, harp, and cello, in a unique way.
What if you could use sandals for a different purpose? At the Slam Organ exhibit, flip flops become instruments, with music made by striking empty pipes with the shoes, causing air inside the pipe to bounce. Longer and shorter pipes make different sounds.
Whether it’s tapping, blowing, or bouncing, music is accessible and all around us. Tune In demonstrates the link between science and sound, and allows visitors to explore classic, modern, non-traditional, and hands-on instruments. The exhibit shows that, with imagination and curiosity, ordinary objects can be used to make music and spread joy.
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