For a physicist, sound refers to those pressure disturbances travelling through a medium by particle interaction. It is also recognised as a series of compressions and rarefaction. While the human audible range is measured somewhere between 20 to 20,000Hz, the human voice lies somewhere between 75 to 1400Hz. The soothing deep voice can be pegged somewhere at the lower range and shrilling and panic causing voice comes to the higher side.
Sound and Culture
Human civilisations around the globe have been pegged around the sound experience from ancient times. Appropriate sounds have been experimented to achieve desired results. The rites and rituals involved in traditions such as nada yoga, shamanism have profusely used appropriate sounds to elevate the level of consciousness. Festivals and festivities have included appropriate sounds to add colour and gusto. Various drums, metal, wind and string instruments have been used to achieve the desired effect. Thus, the link between sound and mind is long recognised in all human societies.
Transforming Sounds to Music
It is the mind which recognises sounds as music or noise. The source, of course, is one that is sound. The conjugation of mind alone can make such distinction, usually the mind responds to disciplined, regulated, sound and considers it music. On the other hand, irregular and chaotic sounds are rejected by the mind as noise. Similarly, familiar sounds create certain curiosity cajoled with certain tension in the mind. Over a time, of course, such sounds get accepted and over-looked. This author had the occasion to interact with families living along the railway tracks in Mumbai who said that without the routine sounds of railways trains passing through, they feel uncomfortable. Elsewhere some people even stated that they cannot sleep comfortably without the noise, to which they are used to living near airports for years.
Acceptance of ‘noise’ as music
Once we accept a sound pattern and start loving it, it can transform into music. All we need is initial acceptance and unconditional love. However, in majority of situations, it is the way sounds combine into rhythmic patterns that please our ears and seize our mind, while satisfying our emotional need such as craving for love recognition compassion, etc., which are rarely available in a competition ridden society. An appropriate sound-silence interplay too makes the sound experience musical. Though manipulation of sound frequencies our moods too get manipulated. We feel joyful or melancholy by this magic in manipulation. Fast tempo creates such a sensation so as to accelerate the rate of our heart beat, while slow tempo relaxes and produces a couple of yawns too.
Transforming sounds to gesture and mimicry
Like the mind our body too is capable of responding to our sound experience. A particular pitch can make us raise our arms while another frequency may make us raise our head and shrink our body frame. The frequency effect is thus not confined to mind alone, but also has an impact on our body, whether we reveal it to others or not. The civilizations all over the world have exploited this impact of sound on mind and body culturally. Look at the varieties of ways the sound experience is conveyed to us by musicians through voice manipulation and through a plethora of musical instruments. And look at the way a dancer responds to sounds – coarse sounds, refined sounds, tones, microtones, fast paced and mime. Thus, an ordinary sound gets transformed into glorious moments in mind and body. It is the sound experience, indeed.
This article was published in ‘The Eternal Solutions’ – December 2005 – 112, 113
Edited by Geeta Shreedar, Mar 18, 2021