Ebook: Why you hear what you hear: an experiential approach to sound, music, and psychoacoustics

This the first book on the physics of sound for the nonspecialist to empower readers with a hands-on, ears-open approach that includes production, analysis, and perception of sound. The book makes possible a deep intuitive understanding of many aspects of sound, as opposed to the usual approach of mere description. This goal is aided by hundreds of original illustrations and examples, many of which the reader can reproduce and adjust using the same tools used by the author. Readers are positioned to build intuition by participating in discovery. This introduction to sound engages and informs amateur and professional musicians, performers, teachers, sound engineers, students of many stripes, and indeed anyone interested in the auditory world. The book does not hesitate to follow entertaining and sometimes controversial side trips into the history and world of acoustics, reinforcing key concepts. You will discover how musical instruments really work, how pitch is perceived, and how sound can be amplified with no external power source.;I. Sound itself. How sound propagates -- Wave phenomenology -- II. Analyzing sound. Sound and sinusoids -- The power of autocorrelation -- Sonograms -- Capturing and re-creating sound -- III. Making sound. Sources of sound -- Making a stretched string -- Resonance rules -- Damped and driven oscillation -- Impulse response -- Impulse and power for complex systems -- Helmholtz resonators -- Sound generation by vortices and turbulence -- Membranes and shells -- IV. Musical instruments. Wind instruments -- Voice -- Violin -- Piano -- Hybrid musical instruments -- V. Psychoacoustics and music. Mechanisms of hearing -- Loudness -- Pitch perception -- Timbre -- Phantom tones -- Dissonance and temperament -- VI. Soundspaces. Modern architectural acoustics -- Sound outdoors.