Live Sound / Live Music
Course 2: Sound and Hearing

Whether you’re setting up at The Wiltern or Madison Square Gardens, understanding the science behind how you perceive sound, how sound travels, and how sound is produced and measured is essential knowledge for anyone aspiring to be any type of audio engineer. In this second course, you’ll learn the physics of sound, how humans interpret sound, and both the objective and subjective characteristics of experiencing sound.

As a future live sound engineer, it is imperative you understand these concrete characteristics of sound since they apply to each and every aspect of what you are aiming to accomplish every single time you set up for a live show. No matter how big–or small–the venue is.

You’ll learn about sound and vibration, sound pressure waves, atmospheric pressure, amplitude, frequency, decibels, and more. And while this is the physics of sound, you won’t need a master’s degree to understand why it’s important and how you can use these characteristics of sound and how our ears comprehend these characteristics.

It might seem like a lot, but learning about the physics of sound and understanding the biology of how we take these sounds in are what make audio engineers so valuable. The course will end with a blog entry on what you’ve experienced during this week as well as a quiz to test your comprehension.