A Whole World of Sound

Wolves howl

Geese honk in flight

Whale calves sing in water

Mother chipmunk calls her babies

Listen!

The other night while I was flipping through channels, I stopped on a PBS broadcast of a symphony orchestra playing from Austria. I had not planned on watching this program, and yet from the first moments of the performance I was riveted to the music. It seemed amazing that a bunch of people with a variety of instruments could create such enthralling sounds. The melodies, the rhythms, the harmonies, the variations in volume, combined with the faces of the musicians caught at my heart and pulled me into the experience and the feeling of the music. My profound reaction to this concert made me start to think about sound in a different way. And then the very next night I attended a local concert by Emma's Revolution. That was a different kind of experience, although just as gripping. The two singers used words, which were missing in the symphony. So not only the melodies and the rhythms but also the meaning of the songs pulled the audience almost out of their seats. That experience was also enthralling. If there had been no sound, just the visual experience of seeing these people performing, how much would have been lost.

These two experiences on top of each other made me do a little research on sound. We're surrounded by sound every moment of our lives. Our bodies intentionally take in air by breathing. But sound hits us whether we want it or not. There's that old question about the tree falling in the forest even though no one is there to listen to it: does it make a sound then? Yes, of course it makes a sound. It doesn't matter if no one is listening. Sound waves are physical things, even though we can't see them. So the tree falling in the forest with no one around will still send out sound waves, and if there aren't any animals nearby, there surely are plants. I learned that there are different frequencies of sound waves, and humans can hear a narrower band of frequency than some animals. Some frequencies we can't hear, but our bodies can feel them. Just think what this means. You don't have to have ears to be affected by sound. Plants can feel the vibrations of sound without ears! 

Why is sound important to us and everything else? For humans, it is our main form of communication. We have language and use words to tell about our ideas, about dangers, about fears and joys. Sound is used by animals in much the same way. They don't have language like ours, but they do vocalize with each other and are able to communicate things. Sound is used by many species for detecting danger, for navigation from here to there, to help with catching food, to reassure or warn their young. Think of a cat. It hisses to warn off a threatening dog, and purrs when it's happy. 

Some animals have voices that carry over a long distance. That has to do with the length of the sound waves. An elephant can emit a sound of a very low frequency (one we can't hear) that carries as much as 10 kilometers. Those sound waves are very long. Higher sound waves are short and tend to bounce off things and lose energy. Whales have the greatest long distance communication. Part of that is because sound travels 4 times faster in water than in air. The humpback whale sings the longest and most intricate songs of the animal kingdom. Don't you wish we knew what they were saying in them? Also, bats, whales and birds use sound for navigation. They can emit high frequency sounds that reflect off objects so that it helps them to "see" what's ahead. Bats can actually locate something as tiny as a human hair with this ability. And birds, of course, sing a wide variety of consistent songs to communicate with each other.

I ran into one site focusing on sound pollution, especially its effect on animals. It talked about how our sounds have a big impact on all kinds of native populations both on land and in the water. And this reminded me of how for many years now, I have a constant ringing in my ears. It is quite loud. Whenever I think about it, like as I am writing this, I notice how loud it is and I wonder how in the world I can manage with that background loud noise there all the time. And yet the body has a wonderful ability to ignore things that are not important. I'm very grateful for this! Although the ringing probably interferes with my general hearing, I am mostly not aware of it unless I intentionally think about it. I hope our animal neighbors have this ability too, so that our urban and industrial noises are easier to live with.

Coming out of this exploration of sound, I think the sounds I love most are the ones that are gentle, tender, and caring. Like a mother singing her baby to sleep, or a baby animal snuggling up to its mother. Then there's music. This is sound raised to a higher level and can have a profound effect on us. Maybe there are some others of you who always have a melody running through your head, no matter what sound waves the world is actually throwing at you. As I was driving my car through Iowa heat today, with the air conditioner blasting toward me, I could swear that I heard a mesmerizing symphony playing through that whooshing sound. I followed its melody, its rhythm and bursts of harmony. But when I turned off the fan I found there was no symphony playing. I was carrying it in my head. I wonder if animals do this too: carry voices around in their brains. Who knows?