How is sound produced? – Sound, in fact, is a form of energy and it is produced by a vibrating body. Whenever a sound is produced, the vibrations of the sounding body can be observed or felt.
Pan Upside Down
Place a pan upside down on a table and strike it with a spoon (fig. 13.1-a), a particular sound will be heard. You can feel its vibrations by touching it with your finger (fig. 13.1-b). You can also see the vibrations of the pan by placing small pieces of paper on it, (fig. 13.1-c) which start jumping.
In school laboratory a device called a tuning fork is used for producing a particular sound (fig. 13.2-a) it is U-shaped having two metal prongs with a stem at the bottom. If we strike a tuning fork on a rubber pad, a sound is heard and the prongs of the tuning fork start vibrating.
The vibrations of the tuning fork can be felt b touching its prongs with your finger (fig. 13.2-b). if you put the ends of the prongs in water after striking the tuning fork against a rubber pad, you will see a splash (fig. 13.2-c) what makes the water splash?
We can conclude from the above observations that sound is produced by vibrating bodies. In other, we can say that a body can produce a sound only when it is vibrating.