Make a bottle organ
Make your own bottle organ and unleash your hidden musical talent!
Get started
Step 1
Pour different amounts of water into the three bottles. You could fill the first up to a quarter full, the second up to half and the third up to three quarters – you decide.
Step 2
Tap the different bottles with the spoon. What do you hear?
Step 3
You can also make music by blowing across the neck of the bottles. Silence, please: the concert is about to begin!
What did you discover?
Sound travels through the air to your ears.
Blowing across the opening of a bottle will cause the air particles to vibrate. Those vibrations create sound waves. The amount of water in the bottle determines the pitch of the sound: high or low. Adding more water gives the air less space to vibrate. This causes it to vibrate faster and produce a higher pitch.
Something else happens when you tap the bottle with a spoon. The sound you hear is caused by the vibrations of the glass and water mass in the bottle. Adding more water produces a lower pitch, as it dampens the vibrations of the glass.
Tip: once you’re done, use the water to water the plants.
