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Sound and the Psyche
We live our lives being constantly immersed in artificial sound, so much of it is so intrusive it’s a wonder that we can block it all out.
The modern world is a cacophony of noises, unlike the natural world that our minds evolved to exist in. Communication between animals and nature has grown to co-exist over millions of years, each sound has become moulded by the environment it exists in, different species of bird have calls that exist within different frequency bandwidths, so the sparrow doesn’t get confused by the magpie or the finch.
This isn’t anything new to us, music is composed with the same sympathy, guitar and bass co-exist because of the intrinsic relationship and space in which the reside, drums sit on top, but not along side, and vocals smack bang in the middle. This is what makes a good mix, and ultimately makes a pretty good song an amazing recording. But this didn’t pop up overnight, mixing and composing have evolved techniques which bring this all together, make it tight and not confuse the hell out of our ears.
So why is the sound of the everyday such a mess, why do we all have to drown it out with yet more sound from our iPods?
Walking down the street in London you’re bound to hear hundreds of car horns, trains rumbling, alarms ringing. You get on the bus and there’s beeps, bells and all sorts of other sounds to alert and distract, and that’s before you over hear some kids not-so-excellent collection of 808 saturated rap and auto-tuned vocals!
Some of these everyday sounds exist for a reason, to alert & warn, to attract attention and advertise something, to soothe, to irritate. But all of them exist to change your state of mind, mostly not for the better.
On a recent trip to Hungary I was amazed to hear classical and local folk music being played in the subway stations, I was shocked, but also calmed, it worked, and made my journey so much more relaxing.
But why isn’t more care taken to think about where a product or service will be placed, to design sound aesthetically just as software interfaces and physical housing of the devices are designed?
It’s becoming apparent to me that this is going to start happening more and more, just as sound design techniques from Hollywood cinema have made their way into third rate TV shows, care and attention to the aesthetics of everyday sound is going to become more prevalent.
But to make that really happen, the world’s sounds need organising just as the natural world has it’s distinct, yet evolved sound for almost everything. our artificial sounds, which at present seem to just be tacked on at the last minute need nuance, elegance, and appreciation of their purpose and role. We need to tackle the ever increasing issue of noise overload. As more devices and technology is placed out there to communicate with us, it needs to speak the language of our brain, one which didn’t evolve for this world we inhabit. Sound needs to take us back to our evolutionary home, even if just to allow us to work in a further reaching future.
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