I'm a Software Developer by profession and my physics knowledge is limited what I had learned at high school level. Please excuse me if the question is trivial.
Question:
From what I know, a sound wave is set of different amplitudes spread across a time line. The amplitudes vary greatly. Hence, sound wave is largely aperiodic (amplitudes don't repeat often). Now, where does frequency come into picture here? If the wave is periodic like a sine wave or a deterministic mathematical function of time, then frequency can be measured as the number of cycles (wave reaching same amplitude) in one second. How can we define frequency of highly aperiodic sounds like human speech. If all that is recorded on a gramophone disc is varying amplitudes across timeline, where is frequency accounted for? Does the frequency remain constant in a typical human speech?