This chapter has described the physical events that give rise to the experience of sound. These events are captured by the ears, transformed into neural events by the hair cells and analyzed by neurons especially designed for frequency and sound location. Throughout this chapter we've largely avoided discussing the perceptual consequences of this sequence of events. But now that you know something about the auditory system's machinery, we're ready to consider in the next two chapters the accomplishment that this machinery makes possible: hearing, including speech perception and music perception.