What makes music?

Tap a table with your fingers and you make a sound. Tap it in a steady pattern, again and again, and suddenly it feels like a little tune. That tiny step is the start of music!

Music is sounds in a pattern

Music is simply sounds put together in patterns. When sounds come in an order that we choose — fast or slow, high or low, soft or loud — our ears notice the pattern and our brains say, “Ooh, that’s a song!”

The special sounds in music are called notes. A song is lots of notes arranged like beads on a string.

Instruments shake to make notes

Every instrument makes notes by vibrating, which means shaking very fast. A guitar string shakes when you pluck it. The air inside a flute shakes when you blow. The skin of a drum shakes when you hit it.

That tiny shaking pushes the air, and the wiggling air carries the sound to your ears.

High notes and low notes

Here is the clever bit. When something shakes fast, you hear a high note, like a tiny bird. When it shakes slowly, you hear a low note, like a big rumbly bear.

A thin guitar string shakes fast and sings high. A thick one shakes slowly and hums low. Singers do this too, by stretching the tiny bands in their throats!

Wonder fact: A hummingbird’s wings flap so fast they make a humming note in the air — the bird turns flying into music!