I am a newbie to electronics and have learned many of the basics. Simply put, what I would specifically like to know is how to put a digital sound (for example, a doorbell sound from a .WAV file) onto an electronic component; then, push a button and play it through a speaker. If someone could explain the concept to me and/or direct me to a DIY project page or file, that would be helpful. Thanks in advance!

 

You can get the ISD1820 board on ebay for a couple of $$.
I used one for just that, but made mine portable using an old door opener transmitter and receiver tied into the door bell.
This way it is portable if I am in the yard/shop etc.
Max..

 

There are a couple ways to go about this. The obvious is to have the sound recorded on a device and have a button press cause the sound to be played. The other way is to use a sound chip.

Do you have a preference?

These came up in a Google search. I haven't read any of them, but didn't pick any that I thought would clearly be misleading (like YouTube).

https://www.dfrobot.com/product-1121.html
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12660
https://www.electronics-lab.com/project/mp3-player-using-arduino-dfplayer-mini/

 

Any device with a suitable amount of memory will work for this purpose.

 

BTW, the board I mentioned, has ability to program,length-selectable & playback.
Both local & remote message trigger.
Max.