Okey Dokey, then. Here's another, perhaps more appropriate example: get a friend to walk to the end of a long steel or iron bridge and put his ear against it. You whack the other end with a hammer* and he hears it through the steel, even if inaudible at that distance through air.
Or those balls that swing on those little gadgets "Desk Jockeys" are provided to help stave off insanity: when an end ball is swung out and allowed to clack back against the series, the one on the opposite end swings out nearly as far, with the intermediate balls remaining stationary. In both cases, the energy is transmitted as a shock-wave, not gross movement. In the bridge example (as in a span across a river or piano construction) the molecules in the composition of it are responding like those balls. I am not saying this is the fundamental** mechanism by which energy is transferred to the board; and what portion of it it IS would be difficult to deduce. But to dismiss this agency as a contributing factor to the tone we then enjoy hearing seems needless.
Thumpe
*Make sure that you own the bridge, first, or you might end up in Gitmo!
**That is a very good pun.
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