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On September 17th, 1998 the Ithaca Journal ran its first "Ask A Scientist!" article in which Professor Neil Ashcroft , who was then the director of CCMR, answered the question "What is Jupiter made of?" Since then, we have received over 1,000 questions from students and adults from all over the world. Select questions are answered weekly and published in the Ithaca Journal and on our web site. "Ask A Scientist!" reaches more than 21,000 Central New York residents through the Ithaca Journal and countless others around the world throught the "Ask a Scientist!" web site.

Across disciplines and across the state, from Nobel Prize winning scientist David Lee to notable science education advocate Bill Nye, researchers and scientists have been called on to respond to these questions. For more than seven years, kids - and a few adults - have been submitting their queries to find out the answer to life's everyday questions.

Previous Week's Question Published: 3 February, 2005 Next Week's Question
Good vibrations: Wood makes for pleasant musical sounds
Question
Why are some musical instruments still made out of wood instead of using new types of materials like plastic?

Question
Musical instruments make sounds by creating vibrations in the air around them. When a guitar string is plucked, it begins to vibrate, and it "bumps into" the air surrounding it, causing the air to vibrate as well. These vibrations - also called sound waves - travel to our ears and cause us to hear a sound. In a wind instrument like a clarinet, the player blows into the mouthpiece and causes the air inside the instrument to vibrate. These vibrations eventually reach our ears, and we hear a note being played.

The body of an instrument - made of wood in the case of a guitar or clarinet - also vibrates when a person plays the instrument. The vibration of the instrument body helps determine how loud the sound is and plays a role in giving each type of instrument its unique sound quality. Since wood comes from living trees made up of cells, it has a special structure that is not duplicated in plastic. If you looked at wood under a strong microscope, you would see that it has many tiny holes in it. These holes cause vibrations in wood to behave differently than vibrations in plastic.

You can hear this difference for yourself if you can find a wooden box and a plastic box (or even a plastic food container). Knock on each box with your hand. The boxes "sound" different because the two materials respond differently to the vibrations caused by your knocking. In the same way, a guitar or clarinet made out of plastic would not sound the same as one made from wood.

There are actually some musical instruments in which traditional materials have been replaced by modern materials. For example, harp and guitar strings used to be made from sheep intestines but are now usually made from nylon. Similarly, drumheads were historically made from animal skins but are now often made from plastics such as mylar. In the future, scientists may discover new materials that can effectively replace wood in musical instruments like guitars, clarinets, violins, and pianos!

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