Scientific concerts or learning acoustics with arts

Bruno Gazengel (1) , Christophe Ayrault (1)

1 LAUM - Laboratoire d'Acoustique de l'Université du Mans

This paper presents the concept of "scientific concerts" developed at Le Mans University by two acoustics teachers-researchers and professional musicians, with the collaboration of three professional musicians. This project was born in 2009 and aims to introduce the basic concepts of acoustics by mixing science and arts. The originality and core principle of a scientific concert is to combine projected animations and spoken explanations with real-time experiments and demonstrations that are being given and played by both physicists and musicians. Learning is also eased by alternating musical themes and scientific content. Two different shows have been developed and given either in high schools, in popular science events or in concerts halls welcoming teenagers or general audience. The first show deals with the three main characteristics of a sound (intensity, pitch, timbre), while the second introduces the physics of musical instruments using the principles of elemental resonators like ducts and strings. The presentation will describe the science-to-music back-and-forth process that has been followed so as to achieve this project, including examples of experiments and auditory demonstrations. A quantitative and qualitative assessment of the concerts given in France and Canada will be finally provided.

Mots clés: acoustic teaching; concerts; real time demonstration

Domaines: Acoustique [physics.class-ph]

Bruno Gazengel, Christophe Ayrault. Scientific concerts or learning acoustics with arts. ICSV 26, Jul 2019, Montréal, Canada. ⟨hal-02466926⟩