Acoustics

Physics

Aural Organ

Capturing sounds. Which sound fits into which pipe? This organ does not make the music itself. It captures sound from its surroundings. Put your ear to the…

Aural Organ

Frequencies vary. It is not the pipe that makes these sounds, it picks them up from the surroundings. Listen to the pipe, what do you hear? And what do you…

Bagatelle Board

Xylophone track. Line up individual notes to form a song: Place xylophone blocks on the slope and let the ball roll. How do you arrange them so that their…

Beats

Tuning instruments to each other. If two different tones are played at the same time, we hear a mixed tone. If its two tones differ only slightly, its volume…

Big Tuning Forks

One fork, two prongs, many tones. Have you ever stuck your head between a tuning fork? The sound after striking is rather unpleasant. Many inharmonic…

Bucket Radio

Unconventional speakers: subtle vibrations become audible. The metal pin vibrates. This creates sounds that we cannot perceive. With the vessel on the pen,…

Clang Wardrobe

A direct line to the ear. These sounds go straight to the bone. For once, the sounds don't come to us through the air. String and fingers form the direct line…

Cogwheel-Melody

Humming in Canon. Start the cogwheel siren and hold a metal disc against one of the 35 cogwheels. The sound you hear belongs to the melody of ‘Frère…

Drum table

Rhythm drums. Which drum plate produces the lowest sound? Which one produces the highest? Hit a simple rhythm. Who completes it? Headphones on. Have fun!

Hot Air Organ

Rijke tubes: Heat makes the sound. When air is heated, it expands. The pressure changes and the air rises to the top of the pipe at the speed of sound. There…

Music in your arm

On air: your elbow. This is where the music flows through your body directly into your ear. The loudspeaker causes a metal rod to vibrate. Its small surface…

Music with bite

On air: your skull bone. This music drives into your bones, right up to your ear. The loudspeaker causes a metal rod to vibrate. Its small surface moves only…

Note Memory

Can you hit the right note? Tap start: You hear a tone. Set the tone you have just heard using the dial. Tap on ‘Auswertung’ (Evaluation). Is your memory…

Note-Timbre-Noise

What's the difference? Producing and analysing tones, sounds and noises. Tone: A sound wave is a periodic change in pressure that propagates in the air.…

Orgelpfeifen

Sound makes leaps. Four short pewter organ pipes and an adjustable wooden pipe are made to sound by pressing a bellows. Can you hear the jumps in pitch? And…

Overtones make the Music

Syntharp: breaking down tones. Plucking, bowing, striking - a string always sounds different depending on how it is struck. Its fundamental tone, the lowest…

Play a Siren Song

Whistles from every hole. Turn the disc, now hold the nozzle to it. The holes in the disc chop up the air flow. The pressure fluctuates, a sound wave is…

Rhythm Roundabout

Set the beat, keep the rhythm. The clapper strikes metal cylinders and wooden blocks that you place on the edge of the disc. They are your beaters. Drum…

Slap Organ

‘Plopp’, well tuned. Bath slippers and drainpipes - your organ. Take the slippers and carefully hit the pipe openings with them. The length of the pipe…

Sound Patterns

Chladni plates: sound figures with sand. The violin bow causes the metal plate to vibrate. The sand on the plate shows the corresponding vibration…

Sounding Glass

Which glass sounds higher, the empty or the full one? Moisten your fingers and circle the rim of the glass: Depending on the fill level, the frequency…

String Stuff

Plucked half-length. Playing with pitches on the large steel guitar. Pythagoras already knew the connection: shortening the string length increases the pitch,…

Theremin

Nothing touched. But it makes music! Where do the sounds come from if nobody touches the instrument? The theremin, developed by Lev Sergeyevich Termen over a…

Vibrating Drumskin

Membrane sound pattern: freeze the vibration. Set the membrane vibrating and play with the frequency of the strobe light. If the flash frequency of the…

Vibrating Glass

Different wavelengths. The loudspeaker causes the cognac glass to vibrate.Where are the vibrations strongest? The strobe light reveals the otherwise…

Vocal Vowels

Voice apparatus. Honking becomes sound. A type of trumpet is connected directly to a pump. It is fitted with a reed inside. If we press air through it with…

Walking Bass

Five bridges, five notes. You play this bass with your feet. You can ‘step’ five notes from the scale along the five bridges: C, D, E, G and A from the C…

Current and magnets

You are electromagnetic From dancing magnets to currents in your own body: experience electromagnetism up close.

Light and sight

Learn how light brings the world alive for us.

Mechanicum

Power, momentum and spin - a game with gyroscopes, pendulums and springs.

Water, nature, chaos

Experience the beauty of nature from its most fascinating and phenomenal side.