WEBVTT - The Sound Aquatic 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:13.960 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.400 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:17.840 was starting this one off. I understand you want to 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.120 call somebody out. You want to call out an individual 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.119 by the name of j Alfred Proof Rock on something. 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.320 He said, it doesn't exactly line up with science, that's right. 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:29.520 And um, my friend Tated s Elliott had this idea 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:32.600 about the silent sees, right, I think we all have 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:34.880 to do. Right. We think about the ocean, the vastness 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:40.120 of it, just being this quiescent ocean of nothingness. Right. Yeah, 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:43.319 I'm sure they're waves and storms and crashing, but when 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:45.839 you put your head underwater, suddenly all or most of 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:49.880 these surface sounds just disappear, right, Right, it's really nice 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.199 and quiet. And I was thinking about that quote from 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:54.200 the love song of j Alfred Proof franc Case. He said, 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:56.200 some of you may have heard it before. I should 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:00.160 have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:05.080 floors of silent seas. There's that silent part. Yeah, I 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:07.080 gotta call you out. It turns out that there's kind 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:10.080 of a disco going on underneath the water there. I 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:12.000 don't think proof Rock is gonna take this well because 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:14.000 he's kind of a he's kind of a gloomy dude. 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:17.280 He's kind of feeling down here. He's gonna take rough 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:19.240 huge in those silent seas. Yeah, and you just took 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.680 that away from him. So sorry. Yeah. Yeah, Well let's 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:25.919 talk about these seas and what happens when we eaves 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.440 drop on the ocean. Yeah, this episode is going to 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:33.440 be all about sounds underwater, sounds under the sea, sounds 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.360 in your swimming pool, but not in your bathtub, but 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:37.919 not in your well, it could be in your bathtub, 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:39.559 I guess all. The bathtub is kind of a small 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.280 environment for Yeah, I was making a part joke. I 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:46.560 apologize about that. Okay, Well, you know we don't throw 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:50.720 them in there often, No, we don't, you sparingly alright, alright, 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:52.600 let's get back to the whole eaves dropping on the 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:57.040 sea thing. Yes, so sound underwater, Yes, it does exist. 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:00.400 If anyone out there was not sure on this sound 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:02.680 does travel through water. In fact, it's travels four times 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.120 as fast. Where we get this weird idea of that 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:07.800 of course is that as humans, we have evolved, for 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.280 the most part to live on the surface. We have 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:13.320 evolved to hear on the surface. So when we put 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.920 our head underwater and water fills our earn, it cuts 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:18.799 down on our ability to hear and the way that 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:20.920 the vibrations are actually picked up by our inner ear. 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:22.760 We end up having to hear for the most part 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.600 with bone connectivity hearing, it means we're actually hearing with 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:28.399 the bones in our skull rather than with the inner 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:30.720 ear itself. So it's a muffled sound to us, right, 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:33.760 it's not really representative of what's going on. Yeah, because 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:38.639 even bone connectivity hearing is less effective than air conductivity 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:41.440 hearing for humans. So yeah, we're often going to hear 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:43.680 something kind of muddy, where they're going to be ranges 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:45.320 that we're not going to even be able to pick 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:47.639 up on at all, or we're not going to hear 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.080 them as clearly as we would hear them on the surface. 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:52.600 Though if we were a dolphin or a whale, we 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.239 would have echolocation on our side and we'd be able 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:59.280 to hear much differently. In fact, sonar and radar systems 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:02.000 are based on this idea of echolocation. And we'll talk 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.760 about this a little bit later, but certainly during the 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:10.359 Cold War, this idea of echo location and sonar was employed, 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:12.760 and the U. S. Navy set up a series of 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.359 massive arrays of hydrophones planted on the ocean floor to 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:20.360 detect submarine sounds. Now that data was transmitted to store 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:22.680 stations where the sounds were analyzed to direct a ship 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:24.880 or an aircraft to the site. And it was a 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:28.560 way to listen in on Soviet submarines, right, because in 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:32.639 sound travels really far underwater, So submarines, even when they're 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:35.560 trying to run silent, there's a lot of machinery in there. 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:37.680 There's a lot of noise to be made. Yeah, you 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:39.480 could pick up on that. With some microphones, we could 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:41.960 consuvably know what the enemy is doing. Yeah, And apparently 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.560 there is a phenomenon known as the deep sound channel, 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:47.440 and that's an ocean layer where low frequency sound waves 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:49.880 that enter the channel can become trapped and bounced around 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:52.800 in this layer for thousands of miles. So this allowed 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:56.520 the Navy to detect even relatively weak sounds from hundreds 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:58.760 of miles away. But then they began to pick up 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:03.000 on things that work really not submarines. It seemed organic, 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:06.920 but based on the sounds they were picking up, they 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:11.440 seemed enormous, like something larger than any known sea creature. Yeah, 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:13.400 if we should note that. Um, you know, after Cold 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:15.600 War ended that they were like, okay, what are we 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:17.360 gonna do with all these hydrophones? And they began to 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.080 just sort of listen to everything they turn in an 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:22.640 open mic night. They're like, alright, alright, ocean, what have 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.920 you got If you're squid with some sort of slam 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.320 style poetry stuff, we'll hear it. Got some stand up comedy. 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.360 Whale shark, bring it whar Yeah, born to run? Here 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.000 you go watch the monitor sing it. But no, I 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.240 mean it was sort of like open Mi night. I 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:42.320 like that analogy. They were gathering data on earthquakes, tremor ships, whales, 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:46.640 and unidentified sounds. And this is where it gets really interesting. 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:48.920 The grandaddy of all these, of course, is the bloop sound. 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:51.240 And we have an article on this on how stuff works. 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:53.040 If you'll go to the House Stuff Work webpage and 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:56.200 you type in bloop into the search bar, you will 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.320 find this article and they'll be and in the discussion. 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:01.440 But there's nothing like hearing it. So I suppose we 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:03.560 should we should actually play the blue. Well, I think 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.440 we should save the blue. Yeah. Yeah. And the reason 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:09.000 why I'm not trying to, you know, withhold the Blue. 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:10.840 We're gonna hold the blue for you because I want 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:14.800 to tell everybody that just a little bit about ocean 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:17.800 sounds and how researchers identify them. I mean, for the 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.440 most part, it's really not very hard to identify them 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:23.680 because you have whales that have very low frequency and 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:25.920 you can record those and they have sort of a 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.320 sound print. Same thing if you've heard sounds of whale 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.960 songs and nothing else sounds quite like it, right, I mean, 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:35.680 that's actually kind of the New Age call anyway, Right, 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:37.920 I mean, I'm sure if someone has heard the whale 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:43.280 call in a song before, right, it's something that again, Okay, 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.520 you got your tool reference and so other markers sound 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:50.640 prints are volcanic activity, iceberg movement. But there are these 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:54.280 sounds that defy explanation, and they remain a mystery as 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:58.719 to whether they are man made or from some mysterious creature. Okay, 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:00.960 so we talked about the blue, we will talk about 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:04.040 the boop. There's something called the up sweep. And this 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:06.760 is a sound that is seated somewhere deep in the 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.680 South Pacific near Antarctica. It's one of the few mystery 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:13.000 sounds that repeats itself in the spring in the fall. 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:17.040 And it's thought that it's due to an unusual acoustic 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.760 phenomenon linked to volcanic activity in this region, perhaps the 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:24.240 result of seawater and volcanic gas interacting and creating a 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.040 resonance pattern. Okay, So there's this idea that there's an 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:29.320 underlying cost for that. So let's listen to that actually 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:43.960 for a second, which is this is the up sweet Okay, 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:47.480 that's serious, right right now, There's something called the train 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:52.200 and again there's a theory behind this that says moving 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:55.920 fluids generate vibrations in the ocean, right, just like blowing 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:58.880 air through a clarinet. That's why we get this train sound. 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:01.280 So if you have moving ocean water in the right 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.520 conditions coming around a seamount or some other thing, that 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.480 could generate sound. Okay, So going to do some thinking. Clarinet, 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:26.800 train okay, Okay, And here's the third one. It's whistle 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:29.400 for obvious reasons, and it was picked up by a 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:33.400 single hydrophone located about miles west of Costa Rica. And 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.400 again no explanation here, and the full clip is something 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:38.560 like a minute long. But here's a nice little sample 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:52.600 for you. All right, Well that one was pretty mysterious 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:54.960 as well. Okay, so let's talk about this bloop. The 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.640 bloop is the best one of all because it's not 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:00.760 playing around trying to sound like a train or whistle 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:04.520 or clarinet or anything of that sort. It's just a deep, 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:09.320 resonating tone here that makes you think of dark and 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:11.960 secret things beneath the sea. I like that, and people 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:14.320 do think of dark and secret things. And I mean 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.040 bluop itself, I mean just the referring to it as 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:19.640 the blue. It sounds like something that would emanate from 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:22.960 some vast amorphous horror at the bottom of the sea. 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.760 Some people like to throws name around. Okay, well that's 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:31.920 because talk about for a second. Okay, Well, Cultul lose 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:35.520 one of the gods from HP Lovecraft's mythos. All these 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.160 various deities such as as is off and are left 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:40.280 the tap, both of which in my opinion, are much 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:42.520 better because I think Cotulo is a little played out 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:45.199 in the public spectrum. He's kind of the Tesla of 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:51.560 the love Crafty and Gods. But giant sea creature, slight 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.320 creature with wings. I mean he's awesome, don't get me wrong. 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:57.920 Prominently featured in the short story to call Qulu. There's 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:00.400 a cult that's really concerned with the fact that at 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:02.319 the beep, the bottom of the sea, you have this 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.760 elder creature, this vast power that's slumbering and will one 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:08.240 day wake and bring all this terror and horror to 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:11.120 the world. Interestingly enough, if you're a fan of the 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:13.640 Georgia R. Martin books or TV show Game of Thrones, 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:16.199 the Vikings in that, but the Viking light characters, the 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.839 Great Joys, their sickle is the crack, and there's a 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:22.000 lot of love Craft I and cthulhu s aspects of 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.280 their story. Okay, so now you know this is the 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:28.800 Smithis Ofthulu. If you want more, Jonathan Strickland wrote a 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:30.679 really cool article about it, and you can go to 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:34.400 house Stuff Works type Cathulu into the bar, or just 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.240 type Lovecraft into the search bar and you'll find that article. Yeah, 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:40.000 it really is a great article. So this bluep sound 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:43.280 it was recorded in originated from a point about fift 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.760 miles west of the southern Chilean coast, and it was 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.280 powerful enough to be picked up on sensors located up 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:51.760 to three thousand miles away, making it one of the 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:55.640 most powerful noises ever to be recorded underwater. And the 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:59.320 sound lasted for just over a minute, has never repeated itself, 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:01.880 and n O a A has checked with the Navy 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.920 and other groups to rule up human made sounds or sources, 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.040 I should say, and this and the rest of the 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:09.160 other cases to you that we talked about. So what 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:11.280 does this blue sound. Let's take a quick listen and 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:13.560 then we'll talk about what it could be or could 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:25.360 not be. Okay, so ice calving has been thrown around 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:29.040 as a possible explanation because it isn't a southerly location, 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:31.280 and then do just kind of make it decently possible. 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.040 But the profile of the sound is much closer to 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.319 that of an animal. And so that's what gets people's 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.360 minds really going. Because it was made by an animal, 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.320 that it must be larger than any other known organism 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:47.000 in the sea. Right, even the blue whale, whose record 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:49.199 length is about hundred and ten feet, would not be 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.280 nearly big enough to account for that sound that was 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:54.960 made by the bloop. But there's no evidence to support 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:57.440 the existence of what we call a super giant whale, right, 0:10:57.480 --> 0:10:59.320 because if it were a whale, we'd have to come 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:02.360 to the surface eventually it would be spotted, right. It 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.160 would have to be something that resided underwater for long 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:08.360 periods of time. The other possibility is a massive squid. Again, 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.599 here comes this Cthulhu idea. But squids don't have the 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:15.120 organs necessary to create loud noises like whales do. That 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.959 kind of kicks that idea out of there. But ultimately 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.400 we just don't know what CAUSI sounds. But that's less 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.679 that it's like some sort of mysteriously creature which could be, 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:28.600 and more that we don't quite have the data right. 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:31.400 I Mean, the Pacific Ocean is vast, So what I'm 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:34.079 getting is that less likely that it's Cathulu or a 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:37.240 crack and more likely that it's got Zilla because remember 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.440 gott Zilla emerged from the deep. Yes, that was exactly 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:43.280 what I'm saying. You were picking up when I'm putting down. Yeah, 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:45.120 we're going to take a quick break and when we 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.000 get back, we're going to talk about an underwater performance 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:56.440 artists that makes Lady Gaga like milk toast. All right, 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:59.440 we're back. I recently was assigned an article for how 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:03.079 stuff Work dot com titled how Underwater Sound Systems. We 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:05.760 write a lot of articles here at how Stuff Works, 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:07.760 and you go into it knowing that not every article 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.319 is going to be your favorite, and sometimes you have 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.760 to find what's fascinating about a topic and bring it out. 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:16.160 Sometimes you have to sort of create something fascinating about 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:19.199 a topic and use that as the jam to go 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:21.199 with the medicine. You know, what you're saying is that 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:23.599 you use some magic here. No, no, no, Actually this 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:25.439 was a topic where I was expecting to have to 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.120 use some magic, but instead the more I looked into it, 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:30.920 the more fascinating the science was. Because I really had 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:32.840 to look at how to sound travel through the water 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.200 versus traveling through the air, how do we perceive sound 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:38.760 on the surface versus underwater, and getting into issues of 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:41.839 bone connectivity hearing, and then also got into the not 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:44.640 only the technology of it, the technology of creating a 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.840 speaker that works underwater, in a speaker system that works underwater, 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:54.320 but also the sort of subculture of listening to music underwater, 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:56.840 which I have not tried it myself yet, but I'm 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:00.000 convinced from what I've seen that listening to music underwater, 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:06.040 especially music that has been created for submarine listening purposes, 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:08.400 is kind of addictive. It's kind of like, once you've 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:10.319 used a really awesome pair of headphones, you can't go 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.000 back to the cheap ones. I think to some people 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:16.559 listening while completely submerged in a swimming pool, like that 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:20.679 is their killer headphone. That is the preferred method, the 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.560 ultimate method of listening to music. I can understand that, right, 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:26.960 because that would be a mind blowing way for your 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:30.400 brain to perceive something that it already delights in. Okay, 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.360 so before we start talking about underwater performance artists, let's 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:36.680 talk about underwater acoustic systems. Yes, there are a number 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.240 of things to take into account when you're talking about 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:41.199 an underwater sound system. I mean, the big one is 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:44.080 gonna be priced. You're gonna pay more sound system generally 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:46.880 for a typical system that you can actually go out 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.040 and buy and and have within the week. You're spending 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:51.079 between three and two thousand dollars on it. And this 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.199 is something you're gonna put in your pool, right, Yeah, Well, 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:57.120 they're they're basically two uses for an underwater sound system. 0:13:57.480 --> 0:13:59.760 One is I want music in my pool, and you're 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:01.839 probably we're thinking, well, that's great. I guess music in 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:03.599 my pool would be great maybe if I'm swimming a 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:05.560 lot of laps or something, or I just have money 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:07.640 to burn. But actually one of the areas you see 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:11.480 this used a lot synchronize swimming. Because synchronize swimmers. It 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:13.640 sounds obvious now that we bring it out in the open. 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:16.800 They have to hear the music that they are performing too, 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:18.520 and so they need to be able to hear it 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:20.640 underwater as well as above the water, so they need 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:24.400 speakers that operate underwater. Also, sometimes with diving, you will 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:26.280 see this on the bottom of dive boats will have 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:29.040 a speaker system. If you need an alarm to sound 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:31.080 so everyone knows they need to get back to the surface, 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:33.920 you would have an acoustic system set up to send 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.680 out that signal. They're also cases where you'll have music 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:40.440 pipe down into underwater environments for people that are diving. 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:43.320 When it comes to designing such a speaker, on one hand, 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:45.680 you need a speaker that can actually go into the 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:48.520 water without dissolving. It doesn't have any cardboard parts, and 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:51.400 it's not going to short out speaker wires aren't raw 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:53.760 and naked in the water that kind of thing. But 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:55.800 then also they have to take into account the way 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.600 that sound actually moves around down there. One of the 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:01.200 things that was really fascinating this when you have a 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:03.640 speaker in a swimming pool, for instance, I mean, the 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.240 sound waves are bouncing off of everything. They're bouncing off 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:08.920 the surface of the water, they're bouncing off the bottom 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:11.240 of the pool, they're bouncing off the walls, and sound 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:13.600 is traveling so fast that you can't really tell like 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:15.680 where it's coming from. It ends up coming at you 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:18.600 from all directions, which is especially interesting when you consider 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:23.520 that stereophonic hearing stereo sound is not possible for humans underwater, 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.560 because not only is the sound traveling so fast, but 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:28.840 we're hearing with our skull bones. We're using that bone 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:32.240 connectivity hearing rather than our actual acoustic hearing. So we're 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:34.080 not getting like this year and this year, we're getting 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:38.040 full skull sound, which is an entirely different sensation and 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:40.920 way to perceive it. Right. Yes, in fact, I've heard 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:44.840 it described as omniphonic sound as opposed to stereophonic or 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.520 monophonic sound. So I don't think that's a technical terminology, 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.520 but that actually comes from Stanford University music researcher John 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.880 are the fourth. All Right, so let's say that you 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:57.680 are that person who has had the experience of listening 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:01.400 to music underwater, and you are for ever changed by 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:05.720 this experience. What do we expect here, Well, this is 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.520 the area that I found perhaps the most amazing for starters. 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:11.480 If you go down to Florida's Low Key Reef every 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.240 year they have something called the Underwater Music Festival, in 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:18.120 which they have boat mounted speakers systems cranking tunes for 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.160 hundreds of divers and snorkelers. They actually dubbed at an 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.160 underwater concert. I say, it's like an underwater rave kind 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:26.320 of except they're playing a lot of like Yellow Submarine 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:27.880 and get the impression that it's a lot of like 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:32.040 old classics rob So that's one level. But where it 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:35.560 really starts getting fascinating, that a probably too much research 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:37.840 on this dude. There's a French composer by the name 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:42.080 of Michael Ridolphi, and this guy is amazing his music, 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:44.520 not even looking at the underwater aspects of it, I 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:46.360 guess you would say he tends to focus on sort 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.800 of a new age ambient electronics sound, which in another 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:52.600 stuff I'm totally into that. But from early on, like 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.520 back beginning of his album Sonic Waters, he really got 0:16:56.600 --> 0:17:01.880 into the use of not only recorded soundscorded with hydrophen phones. 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:04.399 So these are sounds in the ocean. Are we're in 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:06.680 a swing pool or yeah, He's he's interested in just 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:08.600 the sound of sort of the bubbly sound of an 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.359 underwater environment. He's interested in the sound of sea life, 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:14.320 the sound of an ocean environment, and so he's using 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:18.080 those in his music. But then he's also crafting music 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:21.040 that he intends for an audience to hear while their 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:24.280 head is submerged in water. He keeps coming back to this. 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:26.120 It wasn't like a one off thing where he's like, oh, yeah, 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.680 I did that Sonic Underwater album. No, it's like his 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:31.479 career has I mean, he's on some other stuff as well, 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:34.560 but but his career has been defined by his interest 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:38.200 in underwater sound. Not only these recordings that use a 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.640 mix of electronic and ocean noises, but he's also explored 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:45.199 the area of underwater opera. One production involved in casing 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.600 that the piece of soprano singer inside this giant plastic 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:51.280 bubble and having them float around in this pool. So 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:54.600 my question is, if you are a concert goer, are 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:58.040 you submerged in the water and listening underwater or are 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.440 you listening to the water that submerged and then pipe 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:04.160 out both? Really? I mean, because some of these recordings 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.359 that he's done, ideally you were underwater listening to a 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:10.760 piece of music that he is composed using recordings of 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:15.479 underwater sound for an underwater listener. Okay, let's let's take 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:27.840 a listen here. Okay, So that was gait of Mystery 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.840 from the micro Rodolphie album Underwater Music, and you can 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:33.960 find that on Amazon, by the way, and download the 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:36.879 entire thing in case you're interested to hear more. His 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.960 stuff ranges from tracks like that, which I actually really 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:42.920 dig that has a nice electronic ambient kind of sound 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:44.760 to it, and then some of his other stuff is 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:47.159 a little more operatic, and you'll find some of those 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:49.359 tracks on that album as well. My Heart's Sea Dwelling too. 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:51.320 That's a sample that you sent me and I really 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:53.840 enjoyed that. But I really want to talk about a 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:58.680 performance sources named Julianna Snapper because the clip that you 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:03.040 sent me on YouTube, I was visually absolutely blown away. 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:05.800 I have to say, because that this is the artist 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:08.879 who makes Lady Gaga look like she's just phoning it in. 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.920 How would you even describe the dress that she wore 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.560 to submerge herself in the pool. Kind Of like a 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:21.000 sea cloud, I guess, Okay, a netted sea cloud. Like okay, 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:22.760 if you were a Queen of the Mermaids and you 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:26.439 were about to be betrothed to Poseidon, perhaps I mean, 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:30.920 it's just a giant pieces of material floating out and 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:33.080 I'm not doing it justice. So you guys should definitely 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:35.600 look this up. Well. I will definitely include a clip 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:39.040 of this on the blog posted accompanying to this podcast. Yeah, 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:43.359 she uses a mouth to water technique when she sings 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:46.160 in the water. She spent a lot of hours submerged 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:49.920 in her bathtub and friends tubs and stuff and and 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.359 and also apparently did a lot of research into acoustics 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:54.760 of underwater sound. But yeah, I mean, this is again, 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:57.439 it's something that is we're discussing it. It sounds kind 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:00.159 of crazy, it sounds avant garde, and and it is 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:02.600 and it is. But I also have a feeling that 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:04.640 is really tied to this idea. And once you start 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:08.399 experiencing underwater sound and exploring it, you're hooked. And then 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.440 you start doing these things that and engaging in these 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.280 artistic endeavors that to an outsider might seem a little nutty. Yeah, 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.280 but you've got to stick your head underwater. But it's beautiful. 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:20.320 This is the thing, like you know, when you you 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.080 see we're talking about this in art right, Like how 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.679 something strikes you or takes your breath away, it's usually 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:32.720 because somehow you have taken these themes of life, love, 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:35.560 all these things that we experience, and you've made them 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:39.280 new again. You've recast it into some other language that 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:43.600 is recognizable but not quite recognizable. And that's really exciting. 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:45.640 And I think that's what's going on here. Some people 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:47.920 would describe it as sticking an opera in a swimming pool, 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:51.800 but I like your description better. Let's hear a quick 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:53.879 clip from this. This clip is from the two thousand 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.800 and nine opera You Who Will Emerge from the Flood. 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.280 The voice that you're hearing in this is actually the 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:12.879 underwater her mouth to water singing that we were discussing earlier. Okay, 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:15.760