A tuning fork is a tool to help musicians get their instruments in tune. When it is struck, it creates a pure, consistent tone. A player adjusts his instrument--or breath support or mouth position, in the case of some instruments--until the instrument's tone matches that of the fork's.
Appearance
A tuning fork is made of metal. The bottom is a metal rod that splits into two branches at the top. Thus, a tuning fork is a fork with two tines. The fork stands straight from top to bottom.
How It Works
Vibrations produce waves. Striking a tuning fork against a surface produces a vibration. The type of wave the vibration of a tuning fork produces is a sound wave. The sound wave from a vibrating tuning fork travels into your ear so that you can hear it. Sound waves have what are called frequencies, which refer to how often a wave cycles in some unit of time like seconds. Hertz (Hz) is frequency measured in in cycles per second. The frequency of a sound wave relates to the pitch of the sound.
Use in Music
The tuning fork was invented in 1711 by John Shore, an English court trumpeter. Since concert pitch is set at A440, the most common tuning forks for musical use produce the pitch A when struck. Concert pitch is a standard pitch set so that instruments can play together and be in tune. The 440 in A440 refers to frequency, while the A is the A above the middle C on the piano.
Use in Audiology
Since the early 1800s, tuning forks have been used to test hearing loss. Since human hearing picks up a range of frequencies, a range of tuning forks have been developed to test it. A number of hearing tests using tuning forks have been developed. Since sound waves travel through skin and bone--you can experience the sensation in your sternum during a loud action movie--these tests often call for placing the fork against bone, such as the bone behind the ear or the forehead.
Other Uses
Tuning forks have been used to test for neuropathy, a condition where nerve sensation is lost. They can be usd in he field to assess the likelihood of a bone fracture. They are being used in alternative medicine, for instance, "energy medicine." The thinking goes that the body possesses vibrational energy and that tuning forks can help rebalance or re-harmonize the body. The watchmaker Bulova used tuning forks to regulate gear movement inside its watch line Accutron, first released in the sixties. NASA used Accutrons in the spacecraft of the moon missions.
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