Why can we hear sound on the lower end of the spectrum clearer through walls but the higher stuff is blocked?

Question

My parents are listening to 70s music downstairs and I can hear the drums and basslines but not anything else unless I open the door.

In: Biology

Answer 1

Sound is a pushing and pulling wave. Walls are heavy, so you have to push for a long time to get them to move. High pitch sounds push and pull much faster, so the wall doesn’t shake as much. This means that walls shake much more with lower frequencies, and so they pass on the sound to the air on the other side. Edit: To add to this, higher pitched noises bounce around instead of going through things for this reason.