[Trombone-l] nature of sound was Re: Leadpipe

[Jeff Albert]

On May 25, 2006, at 1:58 PM, Eric Edwards wrote:

> That's all fine & dandy.
> But, by pure nature, sound IS the motion of air.
> Am I right?

Not necessarily.  Sound waves travel through air.  When you hear a  
car drive by the sound waves created by the car travel to your ear,  
but the air that is near the car does not need to travel to you for  
you to hear the sound.  if that were the case, sounds could only  
travel in one direction (the direction of airflow) and we all know  
that sounds can travel out from the source in all directions.

> And, if moving air is not a significant component of sound or  
> playing an
> instrument,

It is not a significant component of sound.  It IS a significant  
component of playing a wind instrument, because moving air is the  
energy that gets translated into sound by the vibrating lips (or  
reed, or whatever).

Jeff