Resonance

I’m reading an interesting book called ‘The Single Helix’ by Steve Jones, Professor of Genetics in University College London, about whom I’ve been blogging recently on ‘runawaysun’. The book contains ‘a hundred easy pieces’ Prof Jones had written earlier on various topics on science, bringing science closer to the common man.

An article on sound, titled ‘Raising the Bar’, contains (well, I thought) an amusing anecdote which I couldn’t help but reproduce here:

“Even the finest singer faces the facts of physics. For higher or lower notes resonance moves to a different part of the sound chamber. If it does not (and the job takes practice) the voice will crack. Popeye and the Spice Girls have tiresome voices because all their notes are kept, on purpose or through lack of talent, in a single register.”