Abstract
The chapter deals with the subjective experience of hearing and introduces themes and topics that are taken up in later chapters. It opens with a brief history of the universal human aversion to sounds that are loud, intrusive or unpleasant and explores their psychological and physiological consequences before going on to argue that if one is willing to listen attentively one discovers not only that every sound is interesting, but also that they are frequently an irreplaceable source of information about the world.
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Notes
- 1.
Quite apart from vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch, there is the vestibular system that is essential to keep track of head movements and prevent one from falling over (and is located in a cavity within the skull adjacent to the system responsible for hearing). And touch consists of several distinct senses that are separately responsible for sensations of warmth, hardness and pain. In total we may have as many as 21 senses. Interestingly, the Greek quintet of five senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch) is also found in Chinese and Indian natural philosophy.
- 2.
Low frequency sound can reach the inner ear by bone conduction through the skull, so sticking your fingers in your ears won’t prevent you hearing the bass notes emitted by a source of sound.
- 3.
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The Epic of Gilgamesh (trans: George, A.). Penguin Books, 1999. See the introduction for an account of the discovery and translation of the cuneiform tablets.
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Juvenal, Satires III, 375–380. In: The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis (1693) Translated into English Verse. By Mr. Dryden, and Several Other Eminent Hands. Printed for Jacob Tonson, London.
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Fosbroke, J. (1831) “Practical observations on the pathology and treatment of deafness. The Lancet, Vol. 16, No. 398, p 69–72.
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- 12.
Schartz, H. (2011) Making Noise: From Babel to the Big Bang & Beyond. Zone Books – MIT, p 366–67.
- 13.
The deterioration of vision with age due to loss of elasticity of the lens within the eye, which leads to long sightedness, is known as presbyopia.
- 14.
See this for yourself with an audio spectrometer such as SpectumView, an app for iOS. Alternately voice each of the consonants into the app and notice that their spectra are (a) similar and (b) higher frequencies are prominent. The spectra of consonants /v/ and /f/ are even more similar. To see the audio spectrum clearly, prolong the utterance of the consonant to allow the spectrometer to reveal the constituent frequencies clearly.
- 15.
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- 16.
Wegeler, F. and Ries, F. (1848/1988) Beethoven Remembered: The Biographical Notes of Franz Wegeler and Ferdinand Ries, (trans: Noonan, F.). Andre Deutsch Ltd.
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Schacht, J., (2008) Auditory Pathology: When Hearing Is Out Of Balance. In: Schacht, J., Popper, A. N., Fay, R.R. (eds) Auditory Trauma, Protection, and Repair. Springer, p 1.
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Babbage, C. (1864) Passages From The Life Of A Philosopher. Longman, Roberts, & Green, p 349.
- 23.
Bass, M. (1864) Street Music in the Metropolis. John Murray, p 41.
- 24.
Dickens, C. (1871) Noises. In: All the Year Round, 159, Dec 16, p 56–57.
- 25.
Dickens, C. (1871) Noises. In: All the Year Round, 159, Dec 16, p 56–57.
- 26.
The most egregious example of builders and radios I have come across was a man laying paving stones which he cut with a petrol powered stone-cutting saw while his radio was on full blast. Mindful of his hearing he was, of course, wearing ear defenders.
- 27.
Kaye, G.W.C. (1931) The Measurement of Noise. Proc. Of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 26, p 435–88.
- 28.
Hegarty, P (2007), Noise/Music: A History. Bloomsbury, p 3.
- 29.
UK noise legislation limits worker’s average daily exposure to noise between 80 and 85 dB. The decibel scale is logarithmic, so 85 dB is almost twice as loud as 8 dB.
- 30.
Has anyone heard fingernails on a blackboard now that pen and paper have replaced slates and chalk and blackboards have given way to whiteboards?
- 31.
Ball, P (2010) The Music Instinct: How Music Works And Why We Can’t Do Without It. Vintage, p 165–170.
- 32.
Dickens, C. (1871) Noises. In: All the Year Round, 159, Dec 16, p 56–7.
- 33.
Schopenhauer, A. (1893) On Noise. In: Studies in Pessimism (trans: Saunders, T.B.). Swan Sonnenschein & Co, London, p 127–133.
- 34.
Carlyle, J.W. (1852) letter to John A. Carlyle 27th July 1852.
- 35.
There is no single word in English for this reaction to unpleasant sounds, though there does seem to be one in Spanish: “grima”, which is translated into English as “the creeps”.
- 36.
Kumar, S., Kriegstein, K.v., Friston, K., Griffiths, T.D. (2012) Features versus Feelings: Dissociable Representations of the Acoustic Features and Valence of Aversive Sounds. The Journal of Neuroscience, 32 (41): 14184–14192.
- 37.
Bathurst, B. (2017) Sound, Stories of Hearing Lost and Found. Profile Books, see chapter 4.
- 38.
Sacks, O. (1989) Seeing Voices, A Journey Into The World Of The Deaf. See: “Thinking in Sign” for an account of the intellectual difficulties faced by congenitally deaf children.
- 39.
Keller, H. (1933) Helen Keller in Scotland: A Personal Record Written By Herself, edited with and introduction by J. Kerr Love, M.D., LL.D. Methuen & Co Ltd, p 68.
- 40.
He recorded his thoughts on audio cassettes over 3 years after he became blind in 1983, and some of these were used in Notes on Blindness, a 2014 film about coming to terms with his loss of sight.
- 41.
Hull, J.M. (2001) Sound: An Enrichment or State Soundscape. The Journal of Acoustic Ecology, Volume 2, Number 1, July, p 10.
- 42.
There are many types of microphone, each designed to overcome the problems of recording sound in particular conditions. See: Goldsmith, M. (2015) Sound: A Very Short Introduction. OUP, p 69–74.
- 43.
Used by John Palsgrave in what is the first book about French grammar: “I romble, I make noyse in a house with remevyng of heavy thynges, je charpente.” Despite its French title, “Lesclarcissement de la langue francoys” (1530), the book was written in English.
- 44.
The history of words for colours provides one of the clearest examples of how and why specific vocabularies evolve. Ancient Greek, for example, had few words for colour, and those it did have were applied in ways that seem haphazard to the modern reader. The fact is that people in the ancient world were less interested in colour than we are, and so did not feel the need to name them. The optical qualities that interested the ancient Greeks were brightness, darkness and lustre. See Deutscher, G. (2010) Through the Language Glass: How Words Colour Your World. William Heinemann.
- 45.
The sound need not be loud: a creaking floorboard in the dead of night can be alarming.
- 46.
Condillac, É. B. de (1780) La logique, ou, Les premiers développemens de l'art de pense. Paris.
- 47.
Beament, J. (2001) How We Hear Music: The Relationship Between Music And The Hearing Mechanism. The Boydell Press, p 2.
- 48.
Krause, B. (2013) The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding The Origins Of Music In The World’s Wild Places. Profile Books, p 19.
- 49.
Chion, M. (2016) Sound, An Acoulogical Treatise. Translated with an introduction by James A. Steintrager. Duke University Press, p 224.
- 50.
Chion has been compiling “Le Livre des Sons, une célébration” (The Book Of Sounds, A Celebration) which he described in 2015 as a “dictionary of sonic evocations and words to describe sound throughout history and in different languages (a big book that I started 20 years ago and should be finished in a year.)” It has yet to be published.
- 51.
For examples of onomatopoeias in different languages see Derek Abott’s Animal Noise: http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/animal.html (accessed 20/07/2021).
- 52.
Jabberwocky: “‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: /All mimsy were the borogroves,/And the mome raths outgrabe.” (Slithy = lithe and slimy, mimsy = flimsy and miserable). In: Carroll, L. (1872) Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. Macmillan.
- 53.
Plato, c.399BC, Cratylus.
- 54.
Shakespeare, W. (1597) Romeo and Juliet, Act ii, scene ii.
- 55.
Condillac was of the opinion that language had started as gestures, which he called “the language of action”, rather than as sounds, so he was delighted by de l’Epée’s invention of sign language for the deaf. See: Rée, J. (1999) I See A Voice: Deafness Language And The Senses, A Philosophical Study. Henry Holt and Company, p 170.
- 56.
Blasi, D.E., Wichmann, S., Hammarström, H., Stadler, P.F., Christiansen, M.H. (2016) Sound–meaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol 113, No.39, p 10818–10823.
- 57.
Meteorological symbols for warm and cold fronts seem to draw on this distinction: warm fronts are represented by semicircles and cold fronts by triangles.
- 58.
Ramachandran, VS, Hubbard, EM (2001) Synaesthesia—A Window Into Perception, Thought and Language. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8, No. 12, p 3–34.
- 59.
Hurford, JR (2014) The Origins of Language: A Slim Guide. OUP.
- 60.
Alphabetical writing did not begin like this: symbols that stood for things (pictographs or glyphs) evolved into representations of phonemes present in their vocalised forms.
- 61.
Augustine of Hippo Of The Origin And Nature Of The Soul. In: Oats, W.J. (ed) (1948) Basic Writings of Saint Augustine. Random House, iv: 7:9.
- 62.
Fisher, S.R. (2003) A History of Reading. Reaktion Books, p 90–91.
- 63.
Once you have learned to read, “it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae… it doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be at the right place.” https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/ (accessed 23/07/2021).
- 64.
See David Eagleman’s website for information on what he calls “sensory substitution. https://eagleman.com/?s=sensory (accessed 06/08/2021).
- 65.
There is a great deal of information online about Daniel Kish.
- 66.
Cobble together a “sonic torch” consisting of a mono Bluetooth speaker tethered to an app that produces white noise on a tablet or smartphone. Hold the speaker 25 cm from a hard surface, turn on the white noise and listen as you move the speaker either towards or away from the surface. What do you hear? Does the same thing happen when you direct the sound at a soft surface, say curtains or a pillow?
- 67.
Hull, J.M. (2001) Sound: An Enrichment or State. The Journal of Acoustic Ecology, Volume 2, Number 1, July, p 10.
- 68.
Strawson, P.F. (1959) Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. Routledge, p 65–66.
- 69.
There are exceptions: the Moon Illusion whereby a full or nearly full moon appears to be unexpectedly larger when seen near to the horizon than it does when seen high above it. Rainbows are also subject to this illusion: the arc of a distant rainbow appears broader than one near at hand, though the angular dimensions of a rainbow are constant however far you may be from the rain in which it is seen.
- 70.
Cheselden, W. (1728) An Account of Some Observations Made by a Young Gentleman, Who Was Born Blind, or Lost His Sight so Early, That He Had no Remembrance of Ever Having Seen, and Was Couch'd between 13 and 14 Years of Age. Philosophical Transactions, Vol. 35, Issue 402, p 447–450.
- 71.
Gregory, R.L., Wallace, J.G. (1963) Recovery from Early Blindness: A Case Study. Experimental Psychology Society Monograph No. 2. The paper can be downloaded from Richard Gregory’s website http://www.richardgregory.org (accessed 1/03/2121).
- 72.
The star was 61 Cygni, and Bessel’s measurement of how far it is from Earth was about 10% less than the most recent value (11.4ly).
- 73.
Websites to help doctors hone their skills in auscultation abound.
- 74.
Auenbrugger, L. (1761) Inventum novum ex percussione thoracis humani ut signo abstrusos interni pectoris morbos detegendi [New Invention by Means of Percussing the Human Thorax for Detecting Signs of Obscure Disease of the Interior of the Chest]. Vienna: Johann Thomas Trattner.
- 75.
Laennec, R. (1836) A Treatise On The Diseases Of The Chest And On Mediate Auscultation (trans by Forbes, J.). Thomas and George Underwood, p 4.
- 76.
Laennec, R. T. H. (1819) De L'auscultation Médiate, Ou Traité Du Diagnostic Des Maladies Des. Poumons Et Du Coeur, Fondé Principalement Sur Ce Nouveau Moyen D'exploration. Tomé Second. Paris, p 5.
- 77.
Laennec, R. T. H. (1819), p 95.
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Holmes, O.W. (1848) The Stethoscope Song; A Professional Ballad.
- 79.
Auto mechanics sometimes resort to a long screwdriver if they don’t have a automotive stethoscope to hand. The tip of the screwdriver is placed against the body of the running engine and the ear is pressed against the end of the handle. In the hands of an experienced mechanic this is almost as effective as a stethoscope.
- 80.
Vitruvius (1914) The Ten Books On Architecture (trans Morgan, MH). Harvard University Press. Book 1, p 8–9.
- 81.
When I was a child it seemed to me that my father, a civil engineer, could never walk past a stack of bricks on a building site without picking a couple up and banging them together. I realised that this was a rough and ready test of quality, but gave no thought to the role that sound played. I must have assumed that faulty bricks would break, as they sometimes did. But he was also probably listening to the sound they made.
- 82.
As an occasional home baker, I find that “hollow sound” a reliable test that a loaf is done, though the colour of the crust is just as important. A stiff crust vibrates when tapped and the air pockets within the cooked loaf determine the resonance of its interior.
- 83.
Thoreau, H.D. Journals, August 27, 1859.
- 84.
Apropos of soft biscuits, in the light of the link between sound anf food freshness, what is one to make of that peculiarly British custom of dunking a biscuit in hot tea before eating it?
- 85.
Spence, C. (2017) Gastrophysics. Penguin. See chapter 4 for details of this and similar experiments.
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The packaging was changed in 2010. “Sun Chips loud bag” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kki32mt8p6w (accessed 23/07/2021).
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Heller, E.J. (2013) Why You Hear What You Hear: An Experimental Approach To Sound, Music And Psychoacoustics. Princeton University Press, p 162–63.
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Krause, B. (2012) The Great Animal Orchestra, Finding the origins of Music in the World’s Wild Places. Profile Books, p 67.
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Spencer Chapman, F. (1932) Northern Lights: The Official Account of the British Arctic Air-Route Expedition. Chatto and Windus.
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Huth, J.E. (2013) The Lost Art of Finding Our Way. The Bellnap Press of Harvard University Press. See p 10–11 for an example of navigating in fog using sound.
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Acoustic ecology is the study of the relationship between living creatures and their environment in terms of sound.
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Krause, B. (2012) The Great Animal Orchestra, Finding The Origins Of Music In The World’s Wild Places. Profile Books, p 80.
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Ironically, the intrinsic silence of electric cars poses a danger to the heedless pedestrian. Very soon, manufacturers will have to come up with a suitable sound that can be played through external loudspeakers from the car. What sound or sounds will they choose?
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Schafer, R.M. (1992) A Sound Education, 100 Exercises in Listening and Sound-Making. Arkana Editions, Canada.
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Schafer, R.M. (1994) The Soundscape, Our Sonic Environment And The Tuning Of The World. Destiny Books, p 208.
- 100.
This is also true of light: direct sunlight is just an unpleasant glare until it is transformed into something eye catching when it is reflected, refracted and so on, to make objects visible, produce sky colours, rainbows, mirages, etc.
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Schafer, R.M. (1994) The Soundscape, Our Sonic Environment And The Tuning Of The World. Destiny Books, p 213.
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An online search will provide details of times and places of soundwalks near you.
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There is a specific word for the sound of leaves rustling in the wind: psithurism (derived from the Greek for whispering: psithuros).
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Naylor, J. (2021). Just Listening. In: Now Hear This. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89877-9_1
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