What happens when many sounds overlap? Can we hear one person clearly in a crowded soundscape? Objective This activity introduces masking, or sounds interfering with each other. The group will experience the challenges of picking out a single sound in a noisy environment. Background How quiet or loud is that sound? There are several overlapping terms for this property of sound. Many people say volume. Technical writings might use loudness or amplitude. Musicians talk about dynamics with borrowed Italian words (piano, forte, etc). We prefer the term “intensity” over these alternatives. We try t Duration: 30 Minutes.