Guitar Studio Visits Sparta High School

Sparta, NJ, May 16, 2010 --(PR.com)-- Jeff Gaynor and Bill Wright of Bill Wright's Music Studio visited with Physics students at the Sparta High School to deliver a hands on presentation on the subject of String Harmonics. Instructor Bill Wright first provided a background on the tonal properties of strings and explained that the length, width and tension all effect the pitch that is produced. He also explained that early strings were made out of cat gut and later were made out of steel and various synthetic nylon composites. Both Bill and Jeff demonstrated how the various harmonics (9 in total) can be derived from lightly placing ones finger at various points of a string to produce the harmonics which have a chime like quality to them. They then explained how humans did not create the notes that we hear in music but discovered them as harmonics in the overtone series and used those notes to create music. Jeff explained to the students how the overtone series works and how it affects our emotional response to music. Bill and Jeff then performed a few musical numbers to show how the theory works in actual music. And finally the team explained how the material and size of the material that the string is attached to affects the sound by demonstrating on 5 different Ukuleles of various sizes and materials to show how the size and physical properties of the instruments brought out different overtones that affected the way the instrument sounds.

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