Anatomy of The Ear Turning Air Movement Into Neural Energy. 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. The external ear is made of the pinna and the ear canal. The pinna is the visible part of the ear, and it helps us to focus and localize sounds. Sound is transmitted to the middle ear through the auditory canal. The middle ear consists of the tympanic membrane, or eardrum, the malleus, the incus, and the stapes.