Sound is made when something shakes back and forth very quickly. This shaking is called vibration, and it can happen in your throat, on a drum, or on a guitar string. When you hum and gently touch your throat, you can feel tiny buzzing movements.
Learning where sound comes from helps children connect what they hear with what objects are doing.
Key Facts
- Sound comes from vibrations.
- A vibration is a quick back and forth motion.
- When you hum, your vocal cords vibrate in your throat.
- A drum makes sound when its stretched top vibrates after being hit.
- A guitar string makes sound when the string vibrates after being plucked.
- Faster vibrations make higher sounds, and slower vibrations make lower sounds.
Vocabulary
- Sound
- Sound is what we hear when vibrations travel through air or another material to our ears.
- Vibration
- A vibration is a fast back and forth movement.
- Vocal cords
- Vocal cords are small parts in your throat that vibrate to help make your voice.
- Pitch
- Pitch tells how high or low a sound is.
- Volume
- Volume tells how loud or soft a sound is.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Thinking sound comes from still objects is wrong because an object must vibrate to make sound.
- Forgetting to feel the throat while humming misses the clue that your voice comes from vibrating vocal cords.
- Saying a drum makes sound only because it is hit is incomplete because the hit starts the drum surface vibrating.
- Thinking all sounds are the same is wrong because sounds can be louder or softer and higher or lower depending on the vibration.
Practice Questions
- 1 A child taps a drum 5 times. Each tap makes the drum top vibrate. How many times did the child start a new sound?
- 2 A guitar string vibrates 20 times in one second. Another string vibrates 10 times in one second. Which string makes the higher sound?
- 3 You hum softly and touch your throat. Explain what you feel and why that feeling shows where the sound comes from.