Monitor sleeping habits and the affect music has on them. Using a laptop computer and an online virtual keyboard, test how long it takes daycare or preschool children to fall asleep with and without music. Expand the experiment to see how long and well the children sleep with and without music and how many children simply rest while listening compared to those who actually fall asleep.
Another idea would be to do this project with another student and compare which age children fall asleep better, both with and without music by using two laptop computers with online virtual pianos. Play and record the music you wish to use on the virtual piano before conducting the experiment.
The effect of music on heart rate and blood pressure is always a favorite for student science fair projects. A virtual piano on a laptop computer makes it easy to conduct this experiment in either the school gym or the home gym. Enlist the help or two or three students and take both their blood pressure and heart rate at a resting state. Have each participant spend five minutes on a treadmill or exercise bike to get their heart rate and blood pressure to elevate. Take both readings again after the exercise. Then play some type of soothing music from your virtual piano for another five minutes. Take the blood pressure and heart rate readings a third time. Do the experiment again, and this time, record the final blood pressure and heart rate reading without playing any music. Compare your results and see if the music played from the virtual piano caused the readings to go down faster than the readings without the music.
Soothing music can help reduce destructive behaviors in pets. In this science project, students can determine what types of music and sounds do this better than others. Using your virtual piano, experiment with different sounds, both regular piano sounds and synthesized sounds such as birds, rain or wind. Take you pet into a closed-in area, such as your bedroom or laundry room and give him or her something to chew on like a rawhide bone. Do not speak to your pet, but use the different music from your virtual piano and observe the pet’s behavior over a period of one hour. Make notes on how the music affects the dog’s behaviors, such as chewing, playing and napping. One another day, take the dog into your room again and repeat the experiment, only this time, without any music and just the sound of your voice. Record your results.
Sound waves in a regular piano are produced through vibration. These vibrations are from the hammer inside the piano striking the string. Virtual pianos do not produce sound waves in the same way. This science project measures and compares the sound waves from a virtual piano and a regular piano. For this project, purchase a sounds pressure level meter from a radio store or car stereo store, or borrow one from your school's audio visual department. Test the sounds waves coming from each instrument and record your results in a graph that demonstrates the pitch of the note, the volume and the intensity of each wave.