The Physics of Playing the Saxophone

Last Friday was the Stage Band winter concert, where I played the baritone Saxophone. There was a lot of physics involved in this concert.

First of all a lot of sound waves were being produced. A sound wave consists of condensed and rarefracted areas of high and low air pressure respectively. This wave is made up of particles that travel in simple harmonic motion. The note that the audience hears during a concert depends on the frequency of the note, which is one over the period of the sound wave.

While playing the saxophone, I am able to create music because of the vibrations going through my instrument. A saxophone has a mouth piece with a wooden reed that vibrates when air is blown through it. This air is then pushed through the rest of the instrument and different notes are made because for different notes, different keys are held closed, therefore changing the amount of air that is allowed to go through the instrument. For higher notes (higher frequency) air is allowed to escape towards beginning of the instrument and for lower notes (less frequency) air is not allowed to escape the instrument until it reaches the end. The less time the air spends in the instrument the higher the frequency and pitch, as it there is less time for the air to slow down.

Pan Pacific Robotics Competition

This Thursday, Friday, and Saturday was the Pan-Pacific Robotics Tournament. 86 teams from Hawaii, California, and China came and competed in a giant convention of physics! A majority of the designs involved some sort of scoop and basket that dumped balls over the wall in the center of the field. In order to collect the balls, the scoop must apply an upward force that is equal but opposite to the weight of the ball(s) that it is trying to pick up. This causes the balls to be lifted at a constant velocity. However, our scoop rotated around an axis so as the balls were moving they were changing in their angular position so they were accelerating because velocity is speed and direction. Also, as the balls were being raised their potential energy was increasing as PE is mgh. When the balls were dumped into the basket and were driven to the wall, they were being displaced, but since force was being applied perpendicularly to the ground (direction of motion) no work was being done. Work is Force times displacement.