Some Notes, on Musical Acoustics

The science behind music making is run through with the physics of vibrations and waves and physics has, over many centuries, provided tools and models to explain how music is generated and appreciated. Most of these tools and models are a part of the undergraduate physics curriculum and come together, harmoniously on occasion, in the science of sound. We will explore some of the peculiar physics of making musical instruments and measuring music and even (a little) about hearing notes.

Ben Newling has been a member of the Department of Physics at UNB since 2002, when he arrived from England with a young family. The family is now a little bigger and a lot older. Ben’s first degrees were from the University of Cambridge. He occupied post-doctoral positions at the University of Surrey and with Unilever Research before working in industry at the Unilever Research Port Sunlight Laboratory. At UNB, Ben supervises graduate students in both magnetic resonance imaging and physics education research. He has played Glenn Miller’s “In The Mood” in six different countries.