• Covers the entire field of sound including key historical breakthroughs in understanding sound and its contemporary uses
• Considers the basic behaviour of sound waves, and shows how they are exploited in musical instruments
• Discusses noise reduction and hearing protection

    
Sound is integral to how we experience the world, in the form of noise as well as music. But what is sound? What is the physical basis of pitch and harmony? And how are sound waves exploited in musical instruments? 
  
In this Very Short Introduction Mike Goldsmith looks at the science of sound and explores sound in different contexts, covering the audible and inaudible, sound underground and underwater, accoustic and electric, and hearing in humans and animals. He also considers the problem of sound out of place - noise and its reduction.