Sorry my account status is really misleading. I've been coding for about 2 years now on and off and am very familiar with events XD. I'm also pretty new to this forum. Just couldn't figure out how to play sounds in the update method without playing them 60 times a second. I resolved the issue with this code: (thanks to your help)
//plays crashing sound when two objects collide
if(ob1.intersects(ob2) && !played){
sound.play();
played = true;
}
played = false; //resets the sound for next time
Can't believe I didn't think of this sooner

This doesn't even deserve to be on this forum.