Actually, I once found Helmholtz' work to be really clarifying for me at one point in my quest. The fact that he accomplished what he did at a time before electricity was being exploited really got me to thinking about the subject in a different way.

The old example of the medieval "oscilloscope" in which a glass tube filled with cork bits and covered at each end with a vibratable membrane, with the cork bits grouping in the basic shape of a sound waveform is one demonstration that I've found to be very valuable and interesting as well to the student.

Another great hands on experiment is demonstrating the beats inherent in mixing waves of differing frequencies. That, of course, goes on to show how one can prove the tuning of any musical note without need for any modern electronic tuners, etc. I've used it to demonstrate how the creted wave of two notes that are not quite in tune with each other leads to cancellation and less energy. You can use the aforementioned 'scope to further drive the point home.

And using varied lengths of cardboard tubing to demonstrate resonance is yet another.

I have also attached a piece of ordinary string or thread to the speaker cone with a dab of adhesive, then held the string out in the horizontal in front of the cone while driving it with a sinewave oscillator and amplifier. When the student can SEE the wave and nodes on the string...


--Mac

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