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TRANSCRIPT:
I’m Mark Rapp, and this is Rapp on Jazz.
While jazz is an art form, it’s also a living science of sound. Every note we play, and every chord we shape, is based on the physics of vibration. When a trumpet buzzes or a bass string resonates, it produces waves that travel through the air, creating the tones and textures we recognize as music.
Jazz musicians manipulate these waves with remarkable precision: altering embouchure changes frequency; adjusting reed pressure shifts timbre; and complex chord voicings stack soundwaves in ways that create rich harmonics. Improvisation itself is a real-time experiment, testing how rhythm, pitch, and resonance interact.
The physics may explain how sound works, but the human spirit gives it meaning.
This has been Rapp on Jazz—a co-production of ColaJazz and SC Public Radio, made possible by The ETV Endowment of South Carolina.
