This page contains the material submitted to the local paper - The Davis Enterprise - for Explorit Science Center's news column published in that paper on Fridays.

Are there any budding musicians out there? How about young scientists who like music and want to explore interesting ways sound enters our mind and ears? Inquisitive meticulous music lovers get one last chance to learn about the magic of music and sound.

Visit Explorit and learn about hearing and speaking with the human ear and larynx. Hear international vocal and music styles, learn about the power of resonance and “see” sound waves on an oscilloscope.

It's been a vibrant musical eight weeks at Explorit and the drum roll is just about to end. Saturday marks the final day of "Hey! What's that Sound? The Science of Music" exhibition at Explorit.

Meld music and science together and what do you get? You get a fantasy land of sound experiments with a musical scientific edge. This Saturday experiment with acoustics and sound vibrations. Make your own home-made instruments or even star in your own music parade by picking up and playing a variety of hands-on instruments with friends and family.

Children can pick from a variety of exciting instruments, including small hand drums, colorful shakers, cymbals, triangles and vibrating tuning forks! Young ones can also make their own instruments by putting together a variety of "around the house" items found at Explorit; you can't take the instruments home but you can gain plenty of ideas and inspiration to create instruments with supplies from your own home.

There is also a fantastic display featuring unusual instruments from around the world. Behind the display glass shines the Goat Bass, Brass Darbuka, and Cornet on loan from Watermelon Music.

Marvel one more time at the Music Animation Machine demonstration reel. Music enthusiasts can get both an eye and earful of classical music from a unique video featuring the rainbow tones of Johann Sebastian Bach and Frederic Chopin.

Then if you have time, dance over to the west wall of the Science Center and relax at Explorit's listening station. There you can hear exotic multi-cultural songs sung and played by musicians and singers from South Africa, Mongolia, Italy and India just to name a few.

That's right, now's your chance to visit "Hey! What's that Sound? The Science of Music" before it goes away.

Experiment with sound waves through a variety of items. Watch water jump and discover how sound travels through string. At Explorit you'll get the chance to do some sound testing with such items as a flip flop, an empty cereal box, tubes and funnels, drinking straws, dominoes, and even make rice dance! Bet you never thought you could demonstrate music with these items, but you can!

Most of all don't forget to test your own vocal chords on one of the oscilloscopes, a device used, among other things, to display the amplitude of a sound as a function of time. You'll get a chance to see what your own voice looks like in the form of sound waves.

------------------------------------------------------