Time-frequency analysis with the continuous wavelet transform

The continuous wavelet transform can be used to produce spectrograms which show the frequency content of sounds (or other signals) as a function of time in a manner analogous to sheet music. While this technique is commonly used in the engineering community for signal analysis, the physics community has, in our opinion, remained relatively unaware of this development. Indeed, some find the very notion of frequency as a function of time troublesome. Here spectrograms will be displayed for familiar sounds whose pitches change with time, demonstrating the usefulness of the continuous wavelet transform. (C) 1998 American Association of Physics Teachers.