A Little Bit About Sound A Little Bit About Sound Sounds are created by waves of high and low pressure travelling through the atmosphere. Our sense of hearing allows us to detect several dimensions of sound. We can discern the loudness, the pitch, and the timbre of a sound as well as where it came from. This corresponds to the height of waves at the ocean.
Pitch indicates the frequency of the sound, or how far apart or close together the waves are.
Timbre represents the complexity of the sound, or the number of simpler wave patterns of which one complex sound is made. Click here to return to Physiology of Hearing page.