ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces some of the basic properties of sound as an artistic medium—how it is made, how it behaves, and how people hear it. A falling tree, groaning and crackling, crashes to the forest floor. The term “volume” is often substituted in musical systems for the term amplitude. Air pressure rises as the vocal folds move forward, then drops as the vocal folds move backwards, making this graph of changing air pressure essentially a tracing of that physical motion. All sound waves, no matter how complex, exhibit the characteristics of amplitude, frequency, timbre, and duration. Architectural acousticians employ a variety of surface treatments to diffuse, reflect, and absorb sound, with the goal of creating an ideal set of acoustic behaviors that align with the intended use of a room. Human perception of sound is a critical area of concern for artists, as our anatomy and neurology shapes what and how people hear.
