The Music Room
Everything that sings is wobbling.
Six rooms, twenty-four numbered lessons. We begin with your own throat humming under your fingers, move to clapping games and singing by ear, build instruments out of boxes and rubber bands, then travel from a bone flute to the songs in your headphones. Every lesson names the skill it is quietly teaching.
Start here
Room 1 for everyone — vibration first, notes later.
Twice a week
One lesson, thirty minutes, plus daily singing or ten-minute practice.
Nothing fancy
Your voice, a spoon, five glasses of water, a cardboard box.
The six rooms
Tap a board to open its four numbered lessons.
Room 1
Everything Wobbles
The old way
The old physics-of-sound demonstrations: a stretched string, a ruler, a bowl of water.
Carries into grown-up life
Cause and effect, careful measuring, trusting your own experiment over a guess.
Listen to together
A big church bell, then a tiny handbell — same idea, different size.
Lesson 1
Feel your voice
Do it: Put two fingers gently on your throat and hum a long low note, then a high one.
Big idea: Sound is a wobble — a vibration — that your body can feel, not just hear.
Skill for life: Noticing evidence with more than one sense before deciding what is true.
vibrationhumfeelLesson 2
The twanging ruler
Do it: Hang a ruler over the table edge and twang it. Slide it shorter. Twang again.
Big idea: Short and tight wobbles fast and sounds high. Long and loose sounds low.
Skill for life: Changing one thing at a time — the heart of every experiment.
pitchhighlowLesson 3
Rice on the drum
Do it: Stretch cling film over a bowl, sprinkle rice on top, and sing loudly nearby.
Big idea: Sound travels through air and makes other things move too.
Skill for life: Seeing something invisible by watching what it does.
sound waveairtravelLesson 4
Water glass ladder
Do it: Fill five glasses with different amounts of water. Tap each with a spoon. Put them in order.
Big idea: More water, slower wobble, lower note — you have built a scale.
Skill for life: Ordering things by a quality you can hear, not just see.
scaleordernote
Calm first
Hum a low note with two fingers on your throat for thirty seconds. The wobble travels down a nerve that tells your body it is safe.
One kind thing
Hum together with someone. Two people humming the same note feel closer — that is real, not magic.
How do we know?
Do not just be told sound is a vibration. Sprinkle rice on cling film over a bowl and sing at it. The rice jumps. You have made something invisible visible — that is what a scientist does.
This connects to…
- Science — sound, waves and your amazing body →
- Physical education — breathing and the calming nerve (coming soon)
The Sound Lab
Play, sing, save — and find out how hearing works
Everything here plays on your own device — free, as often as you like. Keep the volume gentle.
On a computer, the keys A W S E D F T G Y H U J K O L play too.
Songs are saved only on this device.
Sing-along corner
Twin-kletwin-klelit-tlestar,howIwon-derwhatyouare.
Fast and slow vibrations
Sound is air wobbling. Slide to change how many wobbles each second (hertz). More wobbles = higher sound.
How we know: stretch a rubber band and pluck it tight, then loose. Tight wobbles faster — and sounds higher.
How loud is loud? Decibels
- 0 dBQuietest sound a young ear can hear
- 30 dBWhisper, rustling leaves
- 60 dBNormal talking
- 85 dBLawn mower, busy traffic — protect ears if it lasts a long time
- 100 dBMotorbike, loud headphones — short times only
- 120 dBRock concert, sirens up close — can hurt quickly
Every 10 more decibels is about ten times more sound energy. How we know: a free sound-meter app on a grown-up's phone lets you measure your kitchen, your voice and a hand-clap.
How ears and brain hear
- The outer ear catches wobbling air like a funnel.
- The eardrum wobbles too — like a tiny drum.
- Three of the smallest bones in your body pass the wobble along.
- The snail-shaped cochlea has thousands of tiny hair cells that turn wobbles into nerve signals.
- Your brain turns the signals into voices, music and birdsong.
How we know: cover one ear and ask someone to clap around the room — two ears help your brain find where a sound comes from.
Why can Deaf people dance?
Sound is vibration — and vibration can be felt, not only heard. Many Deaf dancers feel the beat through the floor, their feet and chest, watch the rhythm in other dancers and lights, and count in their bodies. Evelyn Glennie, a famous percussionist who is profoundly deaf, plays barefoot to feel the music.
Try it: put your hand on a speaker, a drum or your own throat while humming. Then lie on a wooden floor while someone stomps a beat — can you feel the rhythm with your eyes closed?
Deaf culture has its own rich languages, like ASL, and its own music and poetry — different, not less.
Ask Foxy
Your music helper
Ask anything. Foxy gives hints first, then kind explanations.
Type a question below, or tap one of the ideas.
For grown-ups: Rooms 1 and 2 are the foundation — repeat them for years. Keep listening sessions short and loud noises gentle: please watch the volume near young ears, supervise glass, rubber bands and anything blown into, and preview history listening, as some songs carry hard stories of slavery, war and protest.