Figure 1.1

Try this little experiment: gently hold the tips of your fingers on the front of your neck as you speak (Figure 1.1).  Try speaking, and even sing if you like!  Do you sometimes feel a vibration?

Depending on where you hold your fingers and whether you are singing or whispering, you may feel a vibration which comes from the vocal cords in your larynx. In physics, we say that the vocal cords are oscillating .  Oscillations are how all sound waves, including music, are originally created.   In this chapter we will start by talking very broadly about motion (how things move in the physical world), and then we will focus on oscillating motion to get us a little closer to understanding the physics of music.