Under pulse-type ground motions modal analysis is not quite efficient for estimating the elastic response of multi-degree-of-freedom systems, in particular when the effects of higher modes are significant. This paper first shows that the assumption of nondispersive damped waves for shear beams leads to inconsistent response estimation. Subsequently, a closed form time domain dispersive damped wave solution to the partial differential equation of motion is presented and it is verified with frequency domain solutions. Finally, using the solutions to the differential equation of motion, the response of frame structures with energy dissipating devices is studied.