PS 131 - Sound, Music, and Language

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An introduction to the science of sound and humans’ perception of it. Students will develop an understanding of the wave nature of sound, including acoustic phenomena such as resonance and interference. The course will explore the mathematics of harmony and the timbre of various musical instruments. We will conclude with a brief survey of phonetics, from the biological production of speech to the formalization of spoken language through the international phonetic alphabet and spectrograms. Prerequisite(s): MS 100