Can You Hear What I Hear? Charlie Gower
I love music and sound, probably more than anything else. I find it
fascinating when people start finding other uses for sounds and music
or creating sounds and music from unexpected places.
I recently
heard the sound (recorded by satellite) of one of Jupiter's moons,
(created by the interaction of the varying magnetic fields). Who would
have thought we would be listening to planets!
(Fig 1)
I started noticing some new interesting uses for sound a while back when corner shop owners (in the UK) were broadcasting high frequency tones as a deterrent to kids loitering around their shops. Younger children apparently have a broader hearing range to adults. Some kids caught onto this and recorded the sound being broadcast. They then used it for ringtones and text message alert tones in school classes, which of course their teachers couldn't hear. Nice adaptation of technology.
(Fig 2)
I remember hearing many a recorded dog bark in my youth, from houses wishing to seem protected. In Kenya, farmers are considering broadcasting the sound of bees swarming as elephants (sensibly) run away from it. The farmers want to use this to control the elephants 'roaming nature', as they frequently cause a great deal of damage to property and subsequently farmers livelihood.
In Tacoma, Washington State, USA the council were having problems with people drug dealing by the bus stations. This was disturbing locals and nearby shoppers. So to combat this, they started broadcasting Seattle's Classical station - King FM to dissuade pushers from using the area. Apparently it has worked a treat! I wonder how King Fm feels about this?
Everyone knows that music affects behavior. Do depressives listen to Suicide? Are they told not to? Should they just be listening to Abba? Although that might make them worse!
It
looks like we're starting to find other uses for music in social
scenarios. I could certainly do without all the Euro-House that shops
pipe in to make you shop faster.
Let's just hope our new uses for sound aren't simply weapons based. Submarine communications are allegedly beaching whales (due to disorientation) and killing the odd scuba diver as well, and that's accidentally, allegedly!
Fig 1 from The Audio Pages
Fig 2 from Dirac Delta
Comments