Musical instruments and pitch | Science | Quizalize & Oak National Academy

Starter quiz

Jacob hits the skin of a drum with a drum stick. What is happening to the skin of the drum when it is making a sound? The drum skin is ...
- 'vibrating' ✓
What is the scientific name for how high or low sounds are?
- 'pitch' ✓
Izzy blows into a paper straw to make a buzzing sound. What is vibrating to make the sound?
- the air and Izzy's fingers
- the straw and Izzy's eardrum
- the straw and the air ✓
Izzy thinks that changing the length of the straw may change how high or low the sound is. Which statement do you agree with?
- Izzy is correct. Changing the length of the straw will affect the pitch. ✓
- Izzy is not correct. Changing the length of the straw will not affect the pitch.
What equipment can be used to measure pitch?
- a light meter
- a sound meter ✓
- a temperature sensor
- headphones
Match the unit of measurement to what it measures.
- pitch
  
  ⇔
  
  hertz ✓
- volume
  
  ⇔
  
  decibels ✓
- light
  
  ⇔
  
  lux ✓
- time
  
  ⇔
  
  minutes ✓

Exit quiz

Which of these objects is a musical instrument?
- recorder ✓
- lolly
- saxophone ✓
Which statement about musical instruments is true?
- Some musical instruments can produce different pitched sounds. ✓
- All musical instruments produce the same pitch sound.
- Only musical instruments that you blow into produce different pitched sounds.
- Only musical instruments that you pluck can produce different pitched sounds.
Which drum will produce the lowest pitch sound?
- small size drum
- big size drum ✓
- medium size drum
Jacob plays the recorder. Which statement do you agree with?
- To make a high pitched note I need to chop my recorder in half.
- To make a high pitched note I need to blow harder.
- To make a high pitched note I need to cover less holes on the recorder. ✓
- To make a high pitched note I need to cover more holes on the recorder.
What happens to the pitch of a guitar string when your finger moves down the fingerboard?
- The pitch gets lower because the length of the string vibrating is longer.
- The pitch gets lower because the length of string vibrating is shorter.
- The pitch gets higher because the length of string vibrating is longer.
- The pitch gets higher because the length of string vibrating is shorter. ✓
Jacob fills bottles with different amounts of water. He blows over the top of each bottle to produce a musical sound. Which statement below do you agree with?
- Each bottle will produce the same pitch sound.
- The bottle with the most water in it will produce the lowest pitch sound.
- The bottle with the least water in it will produce the lowest pitched sound. ✓

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Lesson Details

Key learning points

Many musical instruments can make different pitched sounds.
Changing the length of the vibrating object can affect the pitch of the sound it produces.
Larger vibrating objects make lower pitched sounds. Smaller vibrating objects make higher pitched sounds.

Common misconception

Children may think that larger and longer objects vibrating produce louder sounds, without linking this to the pitch of sounds.

If working at school, empty the cupboard of as many musical instruments you can find to explore and demonstrate with. Encourage children who play musical instruments to share their experiences too.

Keywords

Musical instrument - A musical instrument is an object that produces musical sounds.
Pitched - How pitched a sound is tells us how high or how low it is.
Vibrations - Vibrating is when an object moves very fast from side to side.
Affect - When a change occurs between two things, we can observe how one thing affects another.