What is sound?
To draw a parallel between the concepts of tension and sound, we must first understand the phenomenon of sound. To discuss this, we can extract sections from the Master Handbook of Acoustics (Everest & Pohlmann, 2009), which describes the fundamental components of sound in its opening chapter titled Fundamentals of Sound.
“Sound can be viewed as a wave motion in air or other elastic media. In this case, sound is a stimulus. Sound can also be viewed as an excitation of the hearing mechanism that results in the perception of sound. In this case, sound is a sensation.”
(Everest & Pohlmann, 2009, p. 1)
Sound can be considered from two different perspectives: either as a physical phenomenon or as an anatomical phenomenon. In the physical world, sound consists of waves that propagate in and between elastic media. Sound is also the translation of these waves by the anatomical hearing mechanism.
Sound can be further categorized by its frequency and amplitude. The frequency of a sound depends on how tightly packed the waves are as they pass a given point.
If these waves represent a package of sound passing a point simultaneously, we can see how the upper waves have a lower frequency than the lower waves. Humans can discern different frequencies through a chamber in the ear called the cochlea (Everest & Pohlmann, 2009, p. 44), within a range of 20 Hz (Hz = oscillations per second) to 20,000 Hz.
Amplitude refers to how powerfully the waves oscillate.
A wave with higher amplitude requires more energy to create since a stronger wave moves more molecules than a weaker wave. The higher the amplitude, the closer the molecules are packed at the wave’s peak. This determines the intensity of the sound.
These are the fundamental properties of sound: vibrations in a medium. It is also possible to discuss additional aspects of sound, such as its behavior in rooms, its interaction between two different media, how humans perceive sound, and more. However, we will stick to these basics for now, as understanding these two building blocks is sufficient at this stage.
My name is Jacob Westberg and I am a game composer, software developer, and educator of game audio. You can find topics here surrounding creative work in game music that I find insightful and interesting to research.
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