Nature of Sound

Hearing a sound gives us a great deal of information about the source of the sound. We can recognize the material involved in generating a sound. The sound produced by tapping on glass, on metal, on wood, on paper, and on many other materials allows us to determine the material, even when we cannot see it. The sound produced by each of these materials has a complex set of features that is characteristic to the material. Through experience we learn to associate complex sounds with their sources, and so sounds can tell us what’s happening around us. See how many of the following sounds you can identify.

  A

  B

  C

  D

  E

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Even so, sometimes the sounds produced by two very different processes are quite similar, such as the sound of falling rain and that of frying bacon. (See for yourself. One of the following sounds is falling rain, the other is frying bacon.)

  F

  G

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In these cases, the inability to distinguish them can lead to feelings of frustration. We are so accustomed to recognizing the source of a sound that being unable to do so can be distressing.

What were the sounds above? Hover the cursor HERE for answers.

To describe what we hear, we need to employ some terminology that refers to aspects of our experience of sound. This is similar to how we describe what we see. To describe a visual scene, we use words that refer to brightness or darkness, to color, to saturation or intensity, to clarity or blurriness. There is an analogous set of terms that are used in describing sound, and these are presented in the next section.