Play It By Ear Exhibit Components

Ball Machine #13: Create a unique acoustical experience when you launch wooden balls down a system of tracks to strike objects like alarm bells and old tools.

Audio Visual: Visual Audio: Slinkys® suspended from speakers make sound waves visible. Watch the Slinkys wiggle and oscillate in response to sounds you play on a keyboard linked to the speakers.

The Giant Music Box: Compose new tunes on this large scale music box when you change washer patterns on a magnetic drum. See the drum roll and activate hammers that strike brass bars to produce tuned notes.

Tinker Tones: Children experiment and create their own works of sound art using objects like small bells, wind chimes, xylophone parts and Tinker Toy ™ connectors.

Vibrating Drum: Sit on this large drum and feel the vibrations of the beat you create.

Washer Works: Slide washers to the top of metal bars of different lengths and listen for differences in sound as the washers wobble and jangle their way back down.

Thing-o-Phone: Be a wooden spoon maestro by striking tones from a collection of table-mounted resonant objects.

Xylobell: Bring out the musical potential of industrial materials like PVC and aluminum tubes and a hollow oxygen tank.

Exhibit Components Developed Locally

Interactive Sculpture (title tbd) by Vern Graner: Interact with ultrasonic sonar technology to create digital sound and light effects. Experiment with how the sounds and light vary with your movement and distance from each sensor.

The Electric Gongs by de la máquina: Use a touch screen display to control the sound of three large brass gongs hung from the darkened ceiling in the Austin Kiddie Limits gallery. De la máquina builds unusual objects to explore physical computing, interface design, and technology for the performing arts.

Percussive Anomalies, created by Austin SoundScape Project, Peter Struble, Designer: Play a tune on the Pluck-Ola or Thunk-a-Phone in this 3 panel kiosk on display outside the Museum.

Now Hear This: Learn how the human ear works. View a 5x life size display of the ear and explore interactive mechanical devices that model the main functions of the ear.

My What Big Ears You Have!: Compare and contrast how your ears collect sound when you position your head between a pair of “much-larger-than-ear” objects.

Which Way is Which?: Try on new sets of “ears” made with a configuration of funnels and tubes that creates a startling directional listening experience. Did that sound come from the right or the left?

There and Back at the Speed of Sound: Can you move at 770 mph? Your voice can. Listen to your own voice echo when sound is sent down the 100 ft. cardboard tube.

Who’s Calling Please?: Have fun making calls with a phone system that electronically alters the sound of your voice to sound like a robot and more.

Listening to a Room: In this field, sound levels will be measured and given a color coding. Watch closely as sound becomes visible! Produced in collaboration with National Instruments.

Play It By Ear was created by the Bay Area Discovery Museum. Supplementary sound sculptures were created by Austin artists and science components were produced by Austin Children’s Museum. Local presentation is funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts and National Endowment for the Arts.