Flesh is a poor sound transducer because it damps vibration

Evidence

A dramatic demonstration of the efficacy of a soundboard is possible with a detached music box brail drum and toothed comb. A desktop will serve as the soundboard. The brail drum and the toothed comb come mounted on a bedplate and can be obtained very inexpensively. The teeth are not baffled and are very inefficient dipole sound sources, as discussed in section 7.7, creating closely proximate zones of compaction and rarefaction as they vibrate. The sound, while audible, is feeble, and even then is likely mostly coming from the metal frame, not the tines. If the bedplate is held between fingers, most of the power of the vibrations ends up dissipated; flesh is a highly damped and very poor sound transducer. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 721

Categorization

• CANDY: Hands damp a music box’s vibration so badly the sound nearly disappears — an everyday, demonstratable fact.
• SEED: A demo-centric explainer on why soundboards and baffles matter, built around the humble music box.