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This is But Why, a podcast for curious kids from VPR. I'm Jane Lindholm. On this podcast, we take questions from kids like you all over the world, and we find answers. This week, we're going to get up and dance. Do you like music?
Most people do, but there are a lot of different types of music out there. Classical, jazz, hip-hop, rock and roll. There are so many different types and styles of music, I'm not even going to try to list them. And maybe you have some preferences. Music you really like and music you really don't.
Lily wonders why that is. I'm eight years old. I'm from Jamestown, New York. And my question is, why do people like different music? Why do different people like different music? Well, Lily, there isn't really a concrete scientific reason. It depends on a lot of things. The types of music you've grown up with, what kind of mood you're in, how you were introduced to the music.
Sometimes you like a song for a while, but listen to it so many times you get sick of it. And sometimes a song or a piece of music becomes attached to a good or bad memory for you. And that can influence how you feel about the song when you hear it even many years later. But no matter what kind of music you like, many people would agree that music can really make you move. Sometimes it makes you feel like moving physically—wiggling, spinning, shaking, and shimmying—
And sometimes it moves you emotionally, makes you feel something, happiness or sadness, or reminds you of an earlier time. In one of our very first episodes, we asked kids why music moves them and how.
Let's start with what Jacob, who was six and from Ballston Spa, New York, told us. It makes me feel good because it just makes my body dance. My name is Gracie, and I live in Burlington, Vermont. I am 12 years old. I play the following instruments. I play violin, euphonium, mandolin, ukulele, bass, djembe, dune-dune.
and many more. Music makes me feel calming. It makes me feel happy most in general. It depends on what I'm listening to. It could make me feel happy. It could make me feel sad. It just makes me feel feelings.
But why does music make us feel feelings? Well, music actually triggers the amygdala, the center in our brains that makes us feel emotions. So when you listen to music, it goes straight to your brain. And it also makes your brain release dopamine, a chemical that's associated with pleasure. That kind of explains why music can make you so happy that you just can't resist bopping your head and wiggling your body.
In fact, music interacts with a lot of parts of our brains. And scientists are still discovering all of the various ways we are connected to music, why it can so easily trigger memories, for example.
But why do I have to sing along to all the songs on the radio when I'm in the car? I know my son would prefer it if I could just listen silently. But sometimes I just have to sing along at the top of my lungs. Do you ever feel that way? What makes you feel like singing or dancing? Or maybe you're like my son and you tell your parents, no, mom, just listen. Yeah, thanks a lot.
We asked one adult who has a lot of experience singing at the top of his lungs and getting kids to sing right along with him to write us a song about music. He invited some of the kids who take his music class to participate. I'm Chris Dorman. I'm the founder of Music for Sprouts, a music and movement program for children and families. I know that music moves us.
Physically, I wonder if maybe it's because the sound waves actually move through our bodies. Our bodies are permeable to the waves, the vibrations. Emotionally, well, the lyrics of a song can connect us to thoughts or ideas or aspirations. That's things that we want to see happen, things that we want to do.
It can connect us to memories, things that have already happened, things that we long for. And then the melody, the actual sound, when you hear that, you can almost feel yourself making that sound, that expression. Have you ever been walking down the street
Say you have your headphones on and a song comes on with a real strong beat, and you look around and the scene that was once chaotic sort of falls into that rhythm. It almost helps you connect to the rest of the world around you. I also like to think that there's a bit of mystery in it. One great joy is I'll start to play a song for kiddos, and it's got a real strong beat, like...
And all of a sudden I see one and a half year old's knees start to bounce or a toddler start to lift his feet off the ground. And before you know it, we're all jumping. It makes me want to jump too. When I hear the wind, it makes me want to spread my wings and soar.
When I hear the wind, it makes me wanna fly. And now we're flying around like birds. Flying around, flying around, flying around like... Feather in the wind. Flying around, flying around, flying around like... Airplane. Flying around, flying around, flying around like... Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle. Flying around, flying around.
When the snow melts away, it makes me wanna dance. Seeds sprout, flowers bloom.
When it's turning to spring, it makes me wanna dance. Now we're dancing around like a frog. Dancing around, dancing around, dancing around like a butterfly. Dancing around, dancing around, dancing around like a king or a moon. Dancing around, dancing around, dancing around like a feather. Dancing around, dancing around.
What is that the sound of? Um, it's the sound of... Tree, tree, tree.
♪ Now we're running around like ♪ ♪ Running around, running around ♪ ♪ Running around like ♪ ♪ Running around, running around ♪ ♪ Flying around like ♪ ♪ Flying around, flying around like ♪ ♪ Dancing around like ♪ ♪ Dancing around, dancing around ♪
That was Chris Dorman. He runs a program called Music for Sprouts, and he writes all kinds of songs about all kinds of different things. We have a link to his website where you can learn more about his music classes and hear some of those songs. You'll find it at butwhykids.org. And in that song, we heard Sophie, Hazel, Alana, Elijah, Ruby, Jade, and Eva.
And if you want to write a song about music, we would love to hear it. Have an adult help record you singing your song and send it to us. Send the file to questions at butwhykids.org, and maybe we'll put it in a future podcast. Let's hear from a few more of you about what music makes you feel. My name is Lily. I am seven. I like music because of the tune in it, all the different tunes of it.
It makes me feel good. I like hip-hop! And here's another thought from... Carson, four years old, Washington, D.C. My body moves. Toes wiggle, nose wiggle, teeth wiggle. I like instruments. I like the sound. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Da-da. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Carson says one way he experiences that boom-boom he likes so much is by going to a drum circle in a local park every week.
A drum plays rhythm. It has a beat, just like your heart. And when you hear loud drums, it can feel like you're feeling those vibrations right in your heart and inside your body. Maybe that's why it makes us want to dance. Well, let's hear from someone who knows. My name is Sani Dathie. I'm originally from Guinea, West Africa. I started playing since I was eight, nine. I really love to share my culture with people.
Dancing drum is part of my life, it's part of my culture because my country is very traditional music we do in Africa, so it's really deep for me. This is djembe, it's a hand drum. Djembe have good skin and three sound. First one is bass and second one is tone.
And third one slap. So if you want to learn how to play djembe, you have to know those three different sounds. Bass, tone, slap. Then you can make the whole together. It sounds like this when you're playing by yourself, but it's totally different with different accompaniments. If it wasn't music in this world, like, I don't know if anybody can live like...
you know, in this world. And really, like, music is really important for us. And it's really important for me because when I think, like, back home, we always play music every day. At street, we block street, we play. Anytime you feel like you want to do party, you're free to do it. People are happy to enjoy it.
That was Senny Daffy, who helps to lead the Jekulu Drum and Dance Theater. He plays the djembe, the krin, and many other traditional West African instruments. In just a minute, we'll hear from a master cello player about how strings work. This is But Why, a podcast for curious kids. We're learning about music today, and we asked another musician to join us to answer two more of your musical questions.
I am Emily Tobble. I'm a cellist, and I live in Burlington. Emily was five when she started playing the cello, and now that's her job. She plays in the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, in another orchestra in Connecticut, and in lots of chamber groups. And she teaches kids and adults who want to learn how to play. And she's here today to answer some of your questions. How do you train your voices?
How do stringed instruments make sound? That was Kelsey, who's four and lives in Redlands, California, and Franca, who's nine and lives in Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada. Those are great questions. I think just to address the idea of a string in general, it can be made out of lots of different materials. And basically, it's probably quite thin, and you stretch it as tight as you can. And then if you pull on it, depending how tight it is, it will make a pitch, it will make a sound.
Because it's vibrating. Because it's vibrating, exactly. So if it's pulled really tightly, the vibrations can be wide or small and make a higher pitch or a lower pitch.
So you can do that probably with lots of different materials, your clothesline, twine. Who knows? There's probably endless amounts of string to use. Even a rubber band. A rubber band makes a great noise. It's true. And some teachers start very, very young children on cereal boxes that have rubber bands strummed on them. So just to get the idea of pulling on a string without actually holding an expensive instrument, which works really well.
As far as strings on a string instrument like my cello,
I have four strings, and the higher-pitched strings are very thin, and then they get thicker as they go towards the bottom of the instrument as the pitch goes lower. So they're all pulled very, very tightly across a piece called the bridge, which sits in the middle of the instrument and holds the strings off of the instrument from laying on the instrument. And we pull the strings really tightly, and then when we pull on them, they vibrate. So this is the highest string.
And this is the lowest string. So you can hear a big range in the higher string is very thin. And then the lower string is quite fat. So it makes that deeper, richer sound because it vibrates at a slower speed. So it's the width of the string, that thicker string, that thickness.
that thicker steel is making a lower sound, but it's also how tightly it's pulled that determines what kind of sound it makes, right? Because that's how you tune the instrument. That's how you tune it, right. Can you show us that? Yeah, the strings, if you can imagine, they come up to the top of the instrument and they're wrapped around what we call pegs.
And to tune the cello or the violin or the viola or the guitar, all those string instruments, we turn the peg. So if we want the pitch to go up, we'll tune the peg up. So it will pull the string tighter. And if we want the pitch to go down, we just tune the peg down and let it be looser. So it makes a lower pitch. Here's A, and I will turn the peg. So you can hear as I turn it down, it's getting looser, and the pitch is going lower. And if I turn it back up...
it'll go back to where I need it to be. So it's the strings, but obviously a string doesn't make noise by itself. It needs to be plucked or strummed or have some kind of thing that's touching it. And then in an instrument like yours, it's also where that sound is going. So you have this big, beautiful cello and it's
hollow on the inside and some of that sound goes into that hollow section and resonates. Can you talk a little bit about how what the string is attached to actually helps determine what kind of sound it's making? Right. So the instrument body itself, and I'll just use the cello for example since I'm holding one, the body of it's called the sound box. And basically what happens is because the strings are wrapped around
in the pegs and connected to the bottom of the instrument, when they touch the bridge, the bridge starts to vibrate. And then that makes the top of the instrument start to vibrate. So the sound box and the bridge are both vibrating. And basically, the air inside the instrument also starts to vibrate. So we have these holes carved on the front of the instrument, and that lets the sound escape.
They're called F-holes because they're kind of carved like a cursive F, and then the sound can escape from there. So when you play the cello, usually you're using a bow and not plucking it with your fingers or strumming it the way you might a guitar. Can you talk a little bit about the different ways you can make sounds with those strings? Absolutely. So most of the time, you're right, I am using the bow. So a bow...
is a stick of wood. It's a special kind of wood that you find in Brazil called Pernambuco wood. The reason we use it is because it's a little bit flexible. So it can bend as I cross the strings. If I want to push harder on the string and get more sound, the bow will flex with my hand. So it's that special kind of wood. And then the wood is connected to
believe it or not, a bunch of horse hair. So it's the hair from a horse's tail and it's white and we string it really tightly and when we cross the strings that's what makes sounds.
Without a special thing on the horsehair, the horsehair by itself doesn't make sound. So we have to put what we call rosin on it. Rosin is just a – it's like a clumped up version of tree sap. So it's very sticky. And when you rub it on the horsehair, it grabs onto all the little parts of the hair and that's how it gets resistant. It kind of – it rubs on the string and that's how we get sound. Okay.
So when we pull the bow across the strings, we put the horsehair down onto the string. And these cello strings are made out of steel. So they're steel. They're wrapped really tightly like we talked about. And then you pull the horsehair across them. You can pull it really quickly or really slowly. You can bounce it. It has all different kind of, we call them bow strokes, but they're basically different articulations and different ways to make sound. ♪
So it's nice and connected, as smooth as we can make it. And then other times we might find something where we need to bounce. Something like that. And oftentimes we roll our bow across more than one string, or we play two strings at the same time to make what we call double stops or chords. So here's, I'll roll my bow, or I might do something a little different with the same notes. ♪
And it depends how many strings I'm pulling at the same time with my bow. But we have all different ways to use it. We can even, a fun fact, is to turn the bow upside down. And sometimes we bounce the stick on the string for a different sound. Something like that, for an effect. And you can pluck it. It can be really bright. It can be, you can pull really hard and make something like that. You can make really nice...
strums. So you can do a lot, as much as you can do with your fingers. You can make all different sounds depending how close you are to the bridge and how far away from the bridge you are. So close to the bridge sounds pretty tight and a little too bright usually. So a little further away sounds a little more gentle.
The way we change notes on a string instrument, we have what we call a fingerboard. So it's a black piece of wood that's on the top of the instrument, and the strings sit right above it. Very close, but not touching. If they touch, it can't vibrate. They can't vibrate, so it can't make sound. But on the fingerboard, when we put our fingers down on the string, it changes the pitch up or down. So if I play my A string, and then I put my finger down,
I change the note higher by one note. And you can put as many fingers down as you want. You sometimes can put two fingers down and play two strings at a time. And so the fingerboard is kind of like our piano keyboard. When we put our fingers down, it changes the notes. Now that we know how the cello works and how the strings make sounds, let's hear some music.
Emily thought a good piece of music to play that would really highlight how beautiful a cello can sound would be a piece written by a composer named Johann Sebastian Bach. This is one of the most famous pieces of music ever written for a cello. Close your eyes for the next two minutes and just let this music waft over you. It's the prelude from Bach's first suite in G major. ♪
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
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That was Emily Tobble, a cello player with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra.
That's it for this episode. If you have a question for But Why, have an adult record it. It's easy to do on a smartphone. Then you can have your adult send the file to questions at butwhykids.org. We will do our best to get an answer for you. And if you like the show, I hope you'll consider giving us a review in iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Helps other families find us and keep us in the algorithm that lets people know what podcasts are where. And it gives us good feedback to know what you like or don't like about the show. But Why is produced by Melody Beaudet and me, Jane Lindholm, at Vermont Public Radio. Our theme music is by Luke Reynolds. We'll be back in two weeks with an all-new episode. Until then, stay curious. From PR.
