Introduction to Sound

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Topic

• Origin and nature of sound, its characteristics and measurement- Amplitude, frequency, period, wavelength, velocity of
sound, sound pressure, sound intensity, decibel scale, sound and distance – inverse square law. human hearing, auditory
range for humans (Frequency and Intensity – threshold of audibility and pain), pitch (association with frequency), tone,
loudness (association with amplitude and intensity), Phon.

• Outcome: Acoustical designing in architecture begins with the preliminary sketches on the drafting board and continuous
throughout all stages of planning and construction. Good acoustics will be assured in the buildings an architect designs if
he has an understanding of the technological principles of architectural acoustics and knows how to apply them.

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Sound in architecture is often misrepresented or misguided as architects place emphasis on the visual aspect of a building. While we
cannot deny the marvel and beauty of such structures and are often mesmerized by the facades. We tend to forget how sound and
other elements are affected by the structures. How can we add value to our architecture masterpieces?

Sound in architecture can separate a normal building from an iconic one. While architecture has a strong visual aspect as it combines
strong forces of design, art, history, science and engineering and influences. It often lacks an important element of aural pleasure not
making it memorable as it deserves to be.
Max Neuhaus, an American classical musician, and artist writes that ‘the sounds of our man-made sound environment are usually simply
byproducts-the results of not caring whether something makes a sound or not, and if it does, not caring what sound it makes’. There
needs to be greater awareness that acoustics do contribute to the experience of a building and it’s time to dedicate greater efforts
towards designing the aural environment in a building too.

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Intersection of sound and architecture
The lack of attention toward acoustic design WAS NOT always the case in architecture. One example is Nijo Castle in Kyoto,
Japan. The hallway is made of uguisubari or Nightingale Floor. These floors were designed to use nails to create squeaking
noise when pressure is applied . This was used as a security device.

Nightingale floor detail

The Music Hall at Ali Qapu Palace, Iran is another case that connects sound and architecture. The building was constructed to
achieve acoustic performance by ensuring low reverberation time of sound which is suitable for Iranian ballads. This was
achieved by constructing an umbrella of niches overhead.
The importance of acoustic design in architecture today is more crucial than we can ever imagine. While it is built for the
comfort and design of people, the nature of sound should transcend into developing an experience.

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• Sound is a vibrations that travel through the air or another medium and can be heard when they reach a person's or
animal's ear.
or
• sound is a vibration that typically propagates as an audible wave of pressure, through a transmission medium such as a
gas, liquid or solid.

Sound wave Vibrates ear drum Amplified by bone Converted to nerve impulses
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When the Sound waves travels through the
medium, the pressure is exerted at the particular
points that creates two regions :
One is called compression where pressure is
more and the density of the medium is more and
The other is called rarefaction where the
pressure is less and the density of the material is
less.
The speed of sound is 343.2 m/s

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Difference between sound and acoustics

• acoustics is the physical quality of a space for performing

music.
• Acoustics is a branch of physics that studies the sound, it is
concerned with the production, control, transmission,
reception and effects of sound.
• sound is a sensation perceived by the ear caused by the
vibration of air or some other medium .

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Origin and nature of sound

• Sound has its origin in vibrating bodies.

Ex. A plucked violin string or a struck tuning fork
• The amplitude of vibration is too small to be observed visually but it can be felt with the finger tips.
• Nature of Sound Waves: Sound is one kind of longitudinal wave, in which the particles oscillate to and fro in the same
direction of wave propagation.
• Sound waves cannot be transmitted through vacuum.
• The transmission of sound requires at least a medium, which can be solid, liquid, or gas.

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Properties of sound
• Frequency: Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time.
• Wavelength: The wavelength, is the distance between two successive rarefactions or
compression.
• Amplitude: the maximum displacement or distance moved by a point on a vibrating body or
wave measured from its equilibrium position. It is equal to one-half the length of the
vibration path.
• sound pressure: Sound pressure or acoustic pressure is the local pressure deviation from
the ambient atmospheric pressure, caused by a sound wave. In air, sound pressure can be
measured using a microphone, and in water with a hydrophone. The SI unit of sound
pressure is the pascal (Pa). The sound pressure
level (SPL) decreases with doubling of the distance by (−)6 dB.
• Intensity: Sound intensity (I) is the sound power distributed over unit area (unit: watts per
square metre).
• Speed of sound: The speed of sound is the distance travelled per unit time by a sound wave
as it propagates through an elastic medium. In dry air at 0 °C, the speed of sound is 331.2
metres per second.

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Properties of sound
• Speed of sound
Depends on type of medium : () travels faster through solid because the molecules are placed closer.
() can not travel through vacuum.
Depends on Temperature of medium: travels faster at high temperature.
• Pitch: high pitch or low pitch depends on the frequency of the sound.
• Loudness: volume of sound depends on amplitude of sound waves.
• Direction: Doppler effect.

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• Decibel: The term dB (decibel) and the dB scale are used world-wide for the measurement of sound levels.
• The decibel scale is a logarithmic scale where a doubling of sound pressure corresponds to a 6 dB increase in level.
• The decibel (dB) is a logarithmic ratio of two quantities (either values of sound intensity or sound pressure).
• In the measurement of sound levels, the decibel ratio is always made with reference to the standard value for the threshold of
hearing.
• By using a logarithmic scale, a wide range of pressure measurements are compressed onto the scale.
• 0 dB corresponds to the threshold of hearing. 120dB corresponds to the threshold of pain.

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• Sound intensity (I) is the sound power distributed
over unit area (unit: watts per square metre).
The amount of energy of a sound which spans a given
radius is its intensity. Intensity is highest at smaller radius
near the source of the sound (louder) and weakens as
the radius grows bigger (fainter sound).
For a point source, the radiating sound spreads out in all
directions in the shape of a sphere. The sound intensity
follows the inverse square law.

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• The Inverse Square Law teaches us that for every doubling of the distance from the sound source in a free field situation,
the sound intensity will diminish by 6 decibels. ... The intensity of the sound is inversely proportional to the square of the
distance of the wave front from the signal source.

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• The range of human hearing is generally considered to
be 20 Hz to 20 kHz, but it is far more sensitive to sounds
between 1 kHz and 4 kHz. There are various sounds created
by different objects.
• Depending on the object and how it is made to produce the
sound, you will get soft, low, or loud sound.
• the variations in sound are actually a result of tone, pitch
and intensity.
• The threshold of hearing/audibility is the weakest sound
that the average human ear can detect. It varies slightly
from person to person.
• The threshold of pain is the strongest sound that the
human ear can tolerate
• While 20 to 20,000Hz forms the absolute borders of
thehuman hearing range, our hearing is most sensitive in
the 2000 - 5000 Hz frequency range. As far as loudness is
concerned, humans can typically hear starting at 0 dB.

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• Difference between Hz and dB:
• Hertz is the measure of frequency or pitch. For example we can measure sounds by knowing the number of waves.
• Another example is transmission and reception of electromagnetic signals. We can transmit and receive signal at a
particular frequency say one kHz, which means 1000 waves are transmitted per second.
• Where as Decibel is the scale of soundness level that can be seen. For example when we murmur the decibel number is 30
and it is different for different sounds.
• Hearing is measured in dB

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Sound level (dB) Typical Environment Effect

140 Threshold of pain

130 aircraft takeoff

120 loud discotheque

110 thunder, noisy factory deafening

100 pneumatic drill

90 truck, heavy lorry very loud

80 noisy office

70 vacuum cleaner loud

60 normal conversation

50 average office moderate

40 quiet suburban home

30 quiet countryside faint

20 whisper

10 sound proof room very faint

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0 Threshold of audibility
• Pitch: the quality of a sound governed by the rate of vibrations producing it; the degree of
highness or lowness of a tone.
• Tone: vocal sound with reference to its pitch, quality, and strength.
sound that can be recognized by its regularity of vibration. A simple tone has only one
frequency, although its intensity may vary. A complex tone consists of two or more simple tones,
called overtones. The tone of lowest frequency is called the fundamental; the others, overtones.
The frequencies of the overtones may be whole multiples (e.g., 2, 3, 4, etc., of the fundamental
frequency, in which case they are called the second, third, fourth, etc., harmonics of the
fundamental tone, itself known as the first harmonic). A combination of harmonic tones is
pleasant to hear and is therefore called a musical tone.

Difference between Pitch and tone

• Pitch is a key auditory attribute of sound.
• It is a perceived fundamental frequency of sound.
• Pitch is subjective in that the perceived tones to a listener are assigned to a musical scale’s
relative positions based mainly on frequency of vibration.
• The frequency of the tones determines the ‘just-noticeable difference’ which is the threshold
of change perception.
• On the other hand tone represents the ‘quality’ of sound that which distinguishes it and
makes it recognizable by its constant ‘pitch’.
• A tone’s pitch defines its depth (or height) in relation to the complete series of tones that can
be heard by the ear.
• This is why two instruments sound differently even if the pitch is the same, for instance a
violin and a flute playing the same pitch will sound differently. The way a listener evaluates
frequency also represents pitch of a tone. Obviously a higher pitch results from a higher
frequency and a lower frequency gives a lower pitch.
• In the field of music, pitch is the actual value of a tone while tone is the thickness of the note.
• In music, pitch can be perfect while tone cannot be perfect.
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Loudness is the human impression of the strength of a sound.
The loudness of a noise does not necessarily correlate with its sound level.
The ear senses noise on a different basis than simple energy summation,
and this can lead to discrepancy between the loudness of certain repetitive
sounds and their sound level.
Take standard frequency at f=1000Hz, if sound level is n decibels above the
threshold of hearing, then loudness =n phons
The phon is a unit of perceived loudness, which is a subjective measure of
the strength of a sound.
• Phon scale provides us with a basic scale of loudness.
• It tells us that one sound is louder than another.

The phon is a unit of loudness level for pure tones. Its purpose is to
compensate for the effect of frequency on the perceived loudness of tones.
The loudness of a 1000 Hz pure tone at 40 dB = 40 phons
The sone scale can tell us how much louder one sound is than another.

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Factors affecting sound
• Intensity results from two factors: the amplitude of the sound waves
• how far the sound waves have traveled from the source of the sound.
• Amplitude is a measure of the size of sound waves. It depends on the amount of energy that started the waves.

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