violinist tunes his violin by tightening the strings; the tighter
they are and the thinner they are, the higher the note they give.
Some of the strings are naturally higher than others; the highest is
a smaller, finer string than the lowest. When the violinist plays, he
shortens the strings by holding them down with his fingers, and the
shorter he makes them the higher the note. A bass drum is much larger
than a high-pitched kettledrum. The pipes of an organ are long and
large for the low notes, shorter and smaller for the high ones.

In general, the longer or larger the object is that vibrates, the
slower the rate of vibration and consequently the lower the pitch. But
the shorter or finer the object is that vibrates, the higher the rate
of vibration and the higher the pitch.

All musical instruments contain devices which can be made to
vibrate,--either strings or columns of air, or other things that swing
to and fro and start waves in the air. And by tightening them, or
making them smaller or shorter, the pitch can be made higher; that is,
the number of vibrations to each second can be increased.

_APPLICATION 44._ Explain why a steamboat whistle is usually
of much lower pitch than is a toy whistle; why a banjo player
moves his fingers toward the drum end of the banjo when he
plays high notes; why the sound made by a mosquito is higher
in pitch than that made by a bumblebee.

_APPLICATION 45._ A boy had a banjo given him for Christmas.
He wanted to tune it. To make a string give a higher note,
should he have tightened or loosened it? Or could he have
secured the same result by moving his finger up and down the
string to lengthen or shorten it?

_APPLICATION 46._ A man was tuning a piano for a concert. The
hall was cold, yet he knew it would be warm at the time of the
concert. Should he have tuned the piano to a higher pitch than
he wanted it to have on the concert night, to the exact pitch,
or to a lower pitch?

INFERENCE EXERCISE

Explain the following:

271. A cowboy whirls his lasso around and around his head
before he throws it.

272. Furnaces are always placed in the basements of buildings,
never on top floors.

273. A rather slight contraction of a muscle lifts your arm a
considerable distance.

274. A player on a slide trombone changes the pitch of the
notes by lengthening and shortening the tube whil