Sound and its

Characteristics
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Who can live
without music?
What is a Sound?
• A sound is a wave that is produced by a
vibrating object and is transmitted or
propagated from one location to another
through a medium.
• A medium is any substance or body of
matter through which a sound wave can
travel. Air is the most common medium
of sound
How a sound is heard?
 How Sound Waves are Produced
• Once it starts vibrating, it will disturb
the particles (molecules) of the air
surrounding it. Disturbing a particle
simply means applying a force on it.

• The strength of the disturbance

decreases as its distance from the
source of the sound (the buzzer)
increases. This is why the farther the
source of a sound is, the fainter the
sound.
 Sound Waves as Longitudinal Waves
• Sound waves travel as longitudinal
waves. This means that its wave
particles vibrate in a direction that's
parallel to the wave's direction of
travel.

• Regions in a sound wave in which the

air particles are compressed and the
air pressure is high are called
'compressions'. On the other, regions
wherein the air particles are expanded
and the air pressure is low are called
'rarefactions'.
Properties of Sound Wave

Frequency

Period

Wavelength
Frequency
• Let's call one complete back-and-forth movement of
the buzzer a 'cycle'. The number of cycles that the
moving part makes per second is called the
'frequency' of the vibration.
Period
• The amount of time it takes to complete one cycle is
called the 'period'. Thus, the frequency of a wave is
just the reciprocal of its period.
Wavelength
• The physical distance between two successive
equivalent points on a wave is called the
'wavelength'.
 Properties of Sound

Frequency and Pitch Intensity of Sound

Amplitude and
Speed of Sound
Loudness
 Frequency and Pitch
• The frequency of a sound wave refers
to how many vibrations the particles
of the medium make per second. The
basic unit of frequency is the hertz
(Hz), which means 'per second'.

• The pitch of a sound is how 'high' or

how 'low' we perceive a sound to be.
Thus, a sound with a frequency of 20
Hz will have a very low pitch.
 Amplitude and Loudness
• The loudness of the sound that
we hear depends on the
strength of the vibration
imparted by the medium's
vibrating particles to our
eardrum. The strength of the
vibration is determined by the
height or amplitude of its
sound wave.
 Intensity of Sound
• The amplitude of the sound
wave is directly related to
another property of sound, its
intensity. The intensity of a
sound is defined as the amount
of energy that it carries
through a given area of a
selected surface per unit of
time, or simply energy per time
per area.
 Speed of Sound
• The speed of sound is the
distance travelled by a
particular point on the
sound wave within a
specified unit of time as
the sound wave propagates
through the medium.