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Soundless Music?

Julez writes "Hi, Found this on icLiverpool's site, thought you might find this interesting.... A bizarre experiment in soundless music has revealed how people's emotions are affected by noises they cannot hear..."

15 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. Experimental Noise Has Been Here Already by zazas_mmmm · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is nothing new to listeners of avante garde noise rock.

    John Zorn experimented with high pitched frequencies outside of listeners' auditory range on Krystallnacht. Track 2 has high pitched frequencies that coexist with the sound of breaking glass that cause feelings of anger, pain and nausea. The liner notes discourage repeated listening (I kid you not).

    The Flaming Lips Did this on Zaireeka, their 4-CD (played simultaneously) experiment--wherein they used frequencies lower than the normal auditory range to create feelings of disorientation (funny since the Flaming Lips most pop-oriented songs can do this too).

    I'm sure more examples can be found within the annals of experimental noise rock.

    --
    I'm a friend of a friend of the working class.
  2. Sonny Bono strikes again by yerricde · · Score: 3, Informative

    Cage's estate actually won a lawsuit over the copyright on this work. Apparently, the estate now has a legal precedent on owning all musical works composed entirely of rests.


    Sonny Bono is the personification of counter-productive copyright law.
    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
    1. Re:Sonny Bono strikes again by kfg · · Score: 2, Informative

      They did not win a lawsuit. The parties reached agreement without litigation, both sides, in fact ( as is often the case in such matters), claiming victory.

      If Mr. Bat had not explicitly given partial author's credit to Mr. Cage on the album the whole thing would likely never have come up in the first place.

      What seems to have ticked off Cage's heirs is the implication that Mr. Bat and Mr. Cage had collaborated on the piece and was thus trading on his reputation without authority.

      *Not* that he had simply recorded a silent piece.

      KFG

  3. Parallel walls? by pompomtom · · Score: 2, Informative

    Standing waves are created by parallel reflecting surfaces.

    Gakk... site is now /.ed, and I didn't note the site of the experiment, but I can't imagine you'd test this in a place likely to be effected by standing waves.

    --

    Buckets,

    pompomtom

    "There's an exception to every rule. Except for some rules"
  4. Re:mp3 question by majestynine · · Score: 3, Informative
    Yes, it would.

    All mp3 encoders have a high and low pass filter to cut off frequencies outside the range of normal human ears. Even if you disabled this, you'd still need special 'low loudspeakers' that are capable of generating tones that low anyway. (most consumer subwoofers will do down to about 30hz)

    So in other words, this won't be a new addition to your home theatre any time soon. (Although an 'emotion' woofer would be really cool on some movies ;) )

  5. No, John Cage does by feed_me_cereal · · Score: 2, Informative

    John Cage totally has Paul Simon beat in the 'sound of silence' game. His song, 4'33", IS silence!

    --
    "Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
  6. The Project's Website by Stinson · · Score: 5, Informative

    I found the project group's website at spacedog.biz, the webpage being specfically http://www.spacedog.biz/infrasonic.htm

  7. Cathedrals and Nazi's use infrasound by goombah99 · · Score: 4, Informative
    This is not news and its bad science. Its been VERY well documented for over 1000 years that infrasound stirs emotions. Cathedrals have long had infrasonic and ultrasonic pipes in the organs. Nazi's used to play infrasonics at rallys to insight violent emotions.

    dont beleive me? just do a google search for "cathedral infrasonic organ". Or check out this page which mentions the use by nazi's

    the fact that the articel mentions none of this prior work sugests this is crap science.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:Cathedrals and Nazi's use infrasound by Kaz+Riprock · · Score: 3, Informative

      the fact that the articel mentions none of this prior work sugests this is crap science.

      No, the fact that a highly summarized article on a news website doesn't mention prior work suggests it's crap reporting. If you read any scientific papers from these researchers and there's no prior recognition or control groups mentioned...THEN it's crap science. What you've done is like reading the Science News article on the human genome mapping project and crying foul.

      (and they did mention prior work in church organs anyways, as I quote:

      Infrasound has been used by organists in churches and cathedrals for at least 250 years to create grand, high-octane music.

      Some scientists also claim it is the cause of the uneasy feelings and changes of emotion experienced in places believed to be haunted.
      )

      --
      Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
  8. Re:Overkill rulez by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Short answer: no.

    Long answer: It would take many different kinds of sensors and something to combine all of them together at the end to record something on that order. And lets not even talk about playing it back... sub, woofer, mid, and tweeter aren't going to cut it at all. Although... i wonder if you could take some sort of huge membrane with known resonances, (or several of them) and use incredibly accurate, high speed laser distancers to detect the vibrations going through it at millions of hertz. Even then, you would have problems sampling because you have to sample at twice the rate you want to reproduce at (That's old man Nyquest for you) and there simply aren't electronics that can process that in real time, digitally. But if you have to, it could be done. Your microphone would just be the size of a semi.

  9. Re:Less sensational title:-Bend me,shape me. by mumkin · · Score: 2, Informative
    You are, perhaps, recalling the 24/7 rock bombardment of a holed-up Manuel Noriega during the US invasion of Panama?

    George Washington University's National Security Archive has a playlist of what the psyops guys used to subdue Noriega here. See Pages 4, 5, and 6 specifically.

  10. Re:Standing waves.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    If you need parallel walls to get standing waves, then it explains why they chose the Metropolitan cathedral instead of the Anglican - the Metropolitan cathedral is one big circular chamber.

  11. Re:Sixth Column by Walt+Dismal · · Score: 3, Informative

    I can confirm this. There was some infamous demo at a conference where someone showed that the resonant frequency of the average anal sphincter muscle was around 37 Hertz. At a high enough acoustic output level, you could cause involuntary resonance of that muscle. So, when I worked for Leslie Speakers in the late 60's, we had a lab room with excellent bass speakers that could put out serious acoustic energy in the 20 to 50 Hertz range. I set up an HP audio oscillator driving something like a 250 watt RMS power amp driving a massive bass speaker in an enclosure, then parked my butt in front of the speaker and with the amp turned up, swept through frequencies. I could feel various internal organs, though very acoustically damped by their internal surroundings, kind of resonantly responding in certain ranges. My guts felt really strange at some frequencies and I could feel unpleasant sensations in my kidneys, and definitely the small intestine. But getting to the point, I found you can get the sphincter to resonate as claimed. I did not carry things too far, as I was afraid of damaging myself internally. By the way, you will NOT get this kind of acoustic wattage out of a home stereo and home speakers. Oh, and you'll never see McGuyver doing this..

  12. Re:Binaural beats? by Animus+Howard · · Score: 2, Informative

    > This is done by playing two different frequencies into
    > the different ears (ie 300 hz into one ear, 304 into the
    > other: your brain then entrains to a 4hz frequency)

    Proximate, but no panatella.

    It's not your brain that does that, it's an actual physical effect. The technical term is heterodyning and it takes place with things like radio waves as well as sound waves, so it can't be a "brain" thing.

    If you mix a 100KHz radio signal with a 110KHz radio signal you will generate "beat" signals at plus-and-minus the difference, i.e. 90KHz and 120KHz. In fact that is the basis for many (all?) analog radio/tv/etc. receivers. The tuner uses an oscillator to generate an RF signal of a certain frequency, which beats with the off-air signal to produce a new signal at a specific frequency. The tuner then decodes the signal at the "intermediate frequency". Change the freqency of the RF oscillator and you change the off-air frequency which beats with it to produce the intermediate frequency. That way the tuner can be optimized to receive a single frequency, thereby simplifying the design.

  13. Re:bingo details by knewman · · Score: 2, Informative
    The title is "Sandy Becker Calls BINGO". The fronts lists it as RCA Victor LBY-1034. The cover is red and yellow with a bingo card pictured. On the back is listed another "secret spiral" record, "LBY-1025 - Mel Allen's Baseball Game". The Copyright is listed as "1959 by DeSylco, Inc., Washington, D.C."



    The label on the disc is blue, and the imprint is "RCA Victor Bluebird". On the label, it says "sandy becker's bingo" and "this is a Secret Spiral Record (K1CP-5272). Engraved in the vinyl is "KICP-5272-25"