From Sound to Spectrogram

3 min
Audience
ages 10–15
Duration
30 to 40 min
Adventure
5/8
Badge to earn
Spectrogram Reader

Today's mission

Read a spectrogram as energy across time and frequency, and name what this representation loses.

Proof of success: explain "From sound to spectrogram", complete "Draw Three Sound Signatures" and name the limit of the analogy.

The story

For an exhibit without real recordings, Raphaël sketches three imaginary sounds: a steady whistle, a short clap and a rising note. A waveform shows the amplitude over time but mixes the frequencies. By cutting the signal into windows and computing their frequency content, we get a spectrogram. The horizontal axis carries time, the vertical axis carries frequency, and intensity represents energy.

Preview — the rest of the lesson is for enrolled readers.

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This lesson is part of the “Images and Sound” module

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