Physics & Music

One is a science; the other is an art. However, they are connected in myriad ancient and fundamental ways. Some time ago, a band director told me that the pitch of a brass instrument sharpens (gets higher) when the temperature rises. I wondered why and performed a basic calculation to verify his claim.

Recently, I had a similar conversation with a friend of mine who is a music graduate student, specializing in the flute. I decided to write a more formal and permanent explanation of my calculation. You can read it here.