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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to All your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and Julie Douglas. And in

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Speaker 1: this episode we're talking about sound, which is which is

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Speaker 1: good because this podcast is is sonic by its very nature.

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Speaker 1: That's right. It is a sound that is traveling into

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Speaker 1: your holes and hopefully it's pleasant. But we wanted to

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Speaker 1: talk about sound more as an aspect of art and

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Speaker 1: spirituality and and and even a sound escape that exists

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Speaker 1: within nature and the ways in which humans have um

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Speaker 1: interacted with us. Yeah, it's a it's a fascinating topic

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Speaker 1: and a lot of it really just gets down to

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Speaker 1: the heart of how do we interact with our world? Uh,

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Speaker 1: what is our sense experience of the world, and what

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Speaker 1: is our our our listening ex into the world. How

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Speaker 1: do we take in the soundscape around us? How do

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Speaker 1: we deal with artificial soundscapes. We live in a world

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Speaker 1: of just over overpowering access to soundscapes. You can go

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Speaker 1: online and you can find just about anything in the

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Speaker 1: natural or unnatural world to listen to and stream it

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Speaker 1: right into your head. Well, and then there's just environmental

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Speaker 1: sounds around us, um and you had mentioned this earlier.

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Speaker 1: We really take for granted the fact that we can

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Speaker 1: manipulate sound around us so easily. Oh yeah, And I

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Speaker 1: mean any given structure, any kind of artificial creation that

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Speaker 1: we've made, or any manipulation of a natural environment, and

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Speaker 1: you know, we're adjusting the way that we hear the world.

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Speaker 1: You grow some hedges, great, you've you've just recreated the

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Speaker 1: sonic experience of your environment. You build a house, same thing,

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Speaker 1: you build a cathedral, same thing. Yeah, these are more

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Speaker 1: like analog examples of the sort of technology that we

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Speaker 1: have at our disposal today. But what if you were

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Speaker 1: ancient man, ancient human in back in the day and

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Speaker 1: you had only the your surroundings to really play with sound,

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Speaker 1: and you have some instruments, okay, but you had your

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Speaker 1: hands to clap with, and you had things to bounce

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Speaker 1: that sound off of. And that's where something like caves

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Speaker 1: become incredibly interesting. Yes, yeah, I mean especially and we

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Speaker 1: were just talking about how the environment outside of our

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Speaker 1: office space is essentially an artificial canyon, and then there's

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Speaker 1: an artificial river of roaring traffic and all of this

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Speaker 1: this stuff, and it's it's just easy to to to

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Speaker 1: take all of it for granted, and just to to

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Speaker 1: overlook the manipulation of sound that's going on. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: imagine yourself in a time where you have just this

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Speaker 1: this natural landscape and the soundscape that exists on top

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Speaker 1: of it, and then you encounter this cave. What happens

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Speaker 1: when you encounter this cave, assuming nothing jumps out of

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Speaker 1: it and eats you. I mean, just the censory of

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Speaker 1: experience of a cave is overwhelming. I mean, we I

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Speaker 1: feel like today we will realize that in terms of

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Speaker 1: our site, in terms of of the the tightness of

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Speaker 1: the space. I mean, it's still the stuff of horror

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Speaker 1: movie and uh yeah, but but but just think about

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Speaker 1: it also from the point of view of sound. Now,

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Speaker 1: this is something that really arrested the imagination of Esther

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Speaker 1: ingle Arcle writing for I oh nine, And she talks

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Speaker 1: about the novel A Passage to India by Ian Forster.

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Speaker 1: And in this novel there's something called the Malabar Caves,

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Speaker 1: and she says they're deep, and they're complicated, and any

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Speaker 1: noise made inside of them, from the scrape of a

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Speaker 1: match to the squeak of a boot heel, comes back

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Speaker 1: as thunderous noise, the sound of the caves drive two

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Speaker 1: British women temporarily mad. And this, this whole idea really

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Speaker 1: captured her imagination. And so she says, to her internal disappointment, Um,

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Speaker 1: these caves, which are based on the b of our caves,

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Speaker 1: do not have the power to drive people into altered

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Speaker 1: states of mind with sound. But she says, hey does

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Speaker 1: turn out that there are actually some caves around the

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Speaker 1: world that do. And before you think, oh, well, that's

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Speaker 1: just some sort of crazy fictional creation, though I mean

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Speaker 1: it did serve a literary point. She points us out

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Speaker 1: in her article that uh, it's it's really about the

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Speaker 1: the the coming revolution in India, the gap between the

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Speaker 1: understanding of uh, the Indians and the British. So it's

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Speaker 1: it works. It's not just the forester making stuff up

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Speaker 1: and putting it in the book. No, it's a nice

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Speaker 1: narrative technique to talk about the unknown. But but then

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Speaker 1: if you actually set off to find that cave, you

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Speaker 1: would be somewhe disappoint You would be very disappointed. But

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Speaker 1: if you are an archo acoustic researcher, you probably would

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Speaker 1: know of several caves. But in order to get to

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Speaker 1: those caves, we have to talk about what archo acoustics

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Speaker 1: is in the first place. Yes, on a very simple level,

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Speaker 1: this is just the study of sound in an archaeological context.

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Speaker 1: Um is simple as is, here's an archaeological site. We

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Speaker 1: put a lot of effort into what does it look like,

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Speaker 1: what did it look like back in the day, reconstructing it,

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Speaker 1: reading any signs and symbols on it, and figuring out

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Speaker 1: what what things were meant to symbolize. But then when

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Speaker 1: you get into archaeo acoustics, it's also how did this

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Speaker 1: place sound? What was the sound experience of this space?

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Speaker 1: And when you start talking about the sound experience of

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Speaker 1: of of a space, I realized that can sound a

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Speaker 1: little bit new ag and hippie dippy, And just try

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Speaker 1: and eject that from your mind as much as possible, because, again,

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Speaker 1: just to bore it down, the sound experience of a

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Speaker 1: space is vital. Sound is an important sensory experience and

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Speaker 1: I think it's it's obvious that it would be if

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Speaker 1: if not the primary driving factor in the creation of

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Speaker 1: of of these ancient sites. It certainly is a factor

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Speaker 1: in the experience of those sites. Yeah, so it definitely

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Speaker 1: is a relationship of the sensory world and the human

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Speaker 1: and that monument or that natural um area in which

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Speaker 1: the person is sitting in. But they also measure the

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Speaker 1: acoustic parameters of a place by use of electronic instrumentations,

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Speaker 1: So they are trying to figure out the physics of

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Speaker 1: sound here and how it's playing out. Now, some would

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Speaker 1: take issue with the field of argo acoustics. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: when you really get down to it, there's not a

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Speaker 1: lot of science to back it up. A lot of

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Speaker 1: this and not to say there there have there have

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Speaker 1: not been studies and they're there are not some some

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Speaker 1: fascinating findings, and we'll get into some of that, but

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Speaker 1: at heart, a lot of it breaks down to us

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Speaker 1: trying to put ourselves in the mindset and in the

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Speaker 1: sense experience of increasingly early humans. Um. And when we're

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Speaker 1: also when we're talking about the sounds that an environment makes,

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Speaker 1: that an official environment makes, or even an augmented one

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Speaker 1: such as a decorated cave, we're talking about percussion, We're

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Speaker 1: talking about the ringing of rocks, We're talking about echoes,

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Speaker 1: and we're even talking about wind water and heat expansion sounds. Uh,

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Speaker 1: any kind of sounds that consider a part of that environment.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, as I believe us researcher Stephen Waller points out, um,

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Speaker 1: and he's one of the primary researchers we're gonna talk

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Speaker 1: about here. UM, A lot of this is about considering

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Speaker 1: the physiological and mental effects of sound and how we

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Speaker 1: use and have used, and continue to use ritual to

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Speaker 1: generate altered mind states and aids visuary experience. And again,

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Speaker 1: today we have access to all of these soundscapes, artificial

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Speaker 1: and uh and natural. We have all you know, you

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Speaker 1: can put in any kind of ambient or high energy

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Speaker 1: album to to augment your headspace, but in earlier times

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Speaker 1: that wasn't an option. Yeah, and I think the main

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Speaker 1: issue with our cho acoustics is again, uh, the interpretations.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, you can hear various soundscapes in nature in

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Speaker 1: a cave, for instance, and there may be some symbolism

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Speaker 1: to accompany it. But I think that the um that

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Speaker 1: the thing that's being levied against arco acoustics is that

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Speaker 1: we are tern recognition machines. So just because we see

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Speaker 1: a correlation here doesn't necessarily mean that there is a causation.

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Speaker 1: In other words, that people were um manipulating sound intentionally

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Speaker 1: in these spaces for ceremonial purposes. For instance, now esther

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Speaker 1: Angle Arcis writes, although the idea is not proved or

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Speaker 1: even provable, I do like it. It indicates there is

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Speaker 1: a gulf between two mindsets, not separated by geographical distance,

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Speaker 1: but by time. Two people standing in the same spot

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Speaker 1: and experiencing the same phenomenon will perceive them completely differently.

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Speaker 1: For one person the experience is a hallucinatory moment bringing

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Speaker 1: together sound, vision, and religion, while the other will just

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Speaker 1: see some pictures without taking note of anything else. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that that's well put. And it it reminds me of

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Speaker 1: Jerusalem Syndrome a bit which we've we've discussed in our

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Speaker 1: Standall Syndrome episode about the impact of art and and

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Speaker 1: also historical sites on the person and so much it

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Speaker 1: is subjective what information you're bringing into it, with your

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Speaker 1: own personal history, your mythological or religious interpretation of the world,

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Speaker 1: um and and certainly a lot of that is is

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Speaker 1: at play here. Yeah, And so it kind of boils

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Speaker 1: down to this. In archao acoustics, it could very well

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Speaker 1: be that there just happened to be a soundscape that

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Speaker 1: worked really well with symbolism. In ceremony, or it could

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Speaker 1: be that, uh, the culture at that time really was

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Speaker 1: trying to manipulate those areas and have it work with

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Speaker 1: their mindsets of how the world worked. So we're never

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Speaker 1: going to get to a definitive answer here. It definitely

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Speaker 1: is that the chicken or the egg argument. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: I can see where it's a hard sell for someone

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Speaker 1: to to to at least interpret some of this, uh,

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Speaker 1: this effort as oh, well, they're saying that Stonehenge or

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Speaker 1: um you know, or or or this cave or that

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Speaker 1: cave exists primarily as an historic site because it changed

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Speaker 1: the way people heard sounds. Um. I can see where

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Speaker 1: that would be difficult. I would be like saying, well,

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Speaker 1: stone Hinge exists because people like the way it tasted.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's it. We're so we have such a

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Speaker 1: visual mindset anyway. But but when you create a what

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Speaker 1: is it ultimately a sacred site? I feel like any

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Speaker 1: way that that site augments your sensory experience would be

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Speaker 1: important to the people who made it and important to

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Speaker 1: study as well. Yeah. Yeah, And and again artificial buildings, uh,

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Speaker 1: artificial constructions, they change the environment. They change the micro environment.

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Speaker 1: As we've discussed in the previous podcasts, but also just

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Speaker 1: as in terms of sound, you walk into a cathedral,

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Speaker 1: you walk into a um, into into a Greek amphitheater, Uh,

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Speaker 1: the sound changes. Your sound experience of this space is

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Speaker 1: different than it would be had at an unaugmented portion

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Speaker 1: of the Earth. Well, and one thing too that I

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Speaker 1: didn't mention is that one of the criticisms love it

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Speaker 1: against archaeo acoustics is this bias that early humans were

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Speaker 1: not sophisticated enough to really understand that so sound sound

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Speaker 1: could be manipulated. So you could say, oh, yes, in

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Speaker 1: a Greek amphitheater, that's totally intentional, right, that someone might

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Speaker 1: take issue with it in a cave, Yeah, so that's

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Speaker 1: something to consider. Yeah, but but but then it also

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Speaker 1: kind of comes down to someone saying, well, early man

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Speaker 1: couldn't possibly appreciate the fact that the cave is changing

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Speaker 1: the way it sounds come out like that's that's ludicrous.

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Speaker 1: So so you know they're like, there're two sides. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: all right, let's take a quick break and when we

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Speaker 1: get back, we're going to talk about spread Pallory. All right,

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Speaker 1: we're back and we're headed to China. Yes, an ancient

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Speaker 1: Mayan sight with a ball court, which sounds really sporty

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Speaker 1: of them. Right. You sound like you're you're showing real

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Speaker 1: estate right now. I know, and I feel like it's

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Speaker 1: property too. And look, this is wellcore where there were

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Speaker 1: their wide outfits and play tennis. But in fact that

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Speaker 1: is not at all with this ball court was about No, no,

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Speaker 1: this uh, this whole site thousand years old and u

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Speaker 1: uh you have a quarter of this as you have

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Speaker 1: the pyramid, the kind of ziggarati ish Mayan pyramid that

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Speaker 1: I'll try to include a picture of this with the

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Speaker 1: landing page for this episode because you really have to

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Speaker 1: look at it to get into everything that we're talking

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Speaker 1: about here. But uh, you have this pyramid, you have

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Speaker 1: this ball court, and indeed they're not playing basketball here.

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Speaker 1: This is a life and death game that is that

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Speaker 1: is occurring. Yeah, just let's foreground this and the fact

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Speaker 1: that the Mayans were really big on sacrifice, and we

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Speaker 1: think of sacrifice as this terrible cultural thing, but if

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Speaker 1: you happen to live um during that time in the

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Speaker 1: mind culture, then it would be um, you would have

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Speaker 1: very high statue if you were someone who were who

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Speaker 1: was going to be sacrificed, your family would be held

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Speaker 1: in high esteem. So the culture was revolved around this idea.

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Speaker 1: And so you have a ball court, which sounds like

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Speaker 1: a sporty thing, but in fact it's this this field

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Speaker 1: where the drama of life is being played out. And

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Speaker 1: it was first excavated in nineteen twenty by archaeologist Sylvani's Morley.

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Speaker 1: Um it's five hundred and forty one ft long and

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Speaker 1: two hundred and forty feet wide, and it is the

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Speaker 1: largest in Mesoamerica, with walls on two sides and small

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Speaker 1: temples at either end. And I also, I just want

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Speaker 1: to throw in that if anyone say, looking at this,

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Speaker 1: you knowit brutal sport, it's uh. I mean ultimately all

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Speaker 1: sports are just mock wars anyway, and maybe this is

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Speaker 1: just a little more honest sport. Yeah. The idea behind

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Speaker 1: this that I've seen is that, um, again, it's a

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Speaker 1: life and death game that was played in the person

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Speaker 1: who won, who actually offered his head to be executed. Again,

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Speaker 1: this is because uh, in this mindset, you know, it

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Speaker 1: would be a great honor to to sacrifice yourself. So UM,

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Speaker 1: keep that in mind, because I want to go back

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Speaker 1: to the structure of this, the temples actually formed a

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Speaker 1: whispering gallery. The amplified sounds spoken within them, and you

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Speaker 1: can stand in this temple or by the temple side. Again,

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Speaker 1: you've got two walls on either side and then temples

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Speaker 1: on either side, and you can speak in a low

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Speaker 1: voice and you can be heard distinctly at the end

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Speaker 1: of the court five hundred feet away. And the idea,

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Speaker 1: at least according to David Loveman, who is one of

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Speaker 1: the researchers probing the acoustic properties of ancient sites, is

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Speaker 1: that um, the minds could create other sounds, not just whispering.

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Speaker 1: They could do a whooping bird flying from right to left,

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Speaker 1: and he said that the priests could also make sounds

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Speaker 1: that sounded like fierce animals like rattlesnakes and jaguars. Again,

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Speaker 1: this is spectacle, this is life and death, and it

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Speaker 1: would make sense that these whispering galleries would help to

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Speaker 1: sort of ratchet up the suspense. Yeah, and it's also

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Speaker 1: worth noting here just to really get down to what

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Speaker 1: the minds were doing with their buildings and how they

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Speaker 1: were manipulating perception. The pyramid temple um with its again,

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Speaker 1: with its step like sides. If you're viewing this um

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Speaker 1: and you're in you're viewing it in the starting in

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Speaker 1: the spring equinox uh time, when the day and night

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Speaker 1: are at equal lengths. You'll you can see a shadow

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Speaker 1: glide down the temple steps and over several days transform

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Speaker 1: into different shapes as it moves across the courtyard. And

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Speaker 1: most scholars believe that this, uh, this shadow represents the

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Speaker 1: feathered Mayan god called Culkin. So if they're manipulating shadow

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Speaker 1: and light, I don't think it's any great stretch to

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Speaker 1: imagine the manipulating sound as well. Yeah. And the fact

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Speaker 1: of the matter is too, is that this is all

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Speaker 1: sort of one big ceremonial celestial marker wrapped up in one,

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Speaker 1: as you say, with sound with light, And it would

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Speaker 1: make sense that this is probably one of the most

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Speaker 1: important areas in which life is playing out in Mayan culture. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, in a this is the center of their universe,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's the center of their culture. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: they have all of their their mythology wrapped up in

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Speaker 1: it and around it. So yeah, Now you can find

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Speaker 1: whispering galleries throughout the world. Grand Central Station in New

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Speaker 1: York is one an unintentional one. I believe, you know,

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Speaker 1: the arches help to create this sonic illusion. You can

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Speaker 1: whisper in one area and be heard another. Um, let

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Speaker 1: me see the Saint Paul's Cathedral in London and the

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Speaker 1: statuary hall in the US Capitol Building. And apparently when

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Speaker 1: I was doing this research, this is a sort of

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Speaker 1: a unique way for someone to propose marriage. Yeah, there

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Speaker 1: you go, using the sacred aspects of the site. However

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Speaker 1: unintentional too, to take part of a sacred ritual. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of, you know, a romantic notion to know

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Speaker 1: that you're you're ask for marriage. I suppose is traveling

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Speaker 1: along in this very intimate way cross base in times

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Speaker 1: who beloved's ear? All right, Now we're gonna travel to uh,

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Speaker 1: far different structure, sure, in fact, a natural structure, and

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Speaker 1: that's the Liscow Caves. Uh. And these are of course

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Speaker 1: located in France. You'll recognize the pictures, uh, ancient ancient

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Speaker 1: illustrations of animals on the wall. Uh, you know, very

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Speaker 1: stereotypical cave paintings. Um. So really a John back in time,

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Speaker 1: far beyond the mirror a thousand years ago of the

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Speaker 1: mine example we were discussing, Yeah, Warner Harzog actually documented

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Speaker 1: them in his film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and in

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Speaker 1: it you see herds of rocks, bulls, and horses depicted

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Speaker 1: running along the walls. There's a sense of motion, and

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Speaker 1: that is important in terms of archaeo acoustics. Stephen Waller

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Speaker 1: of the research lab Rock Art Acoustics believes that the

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Speaker 1: echoes of ritual clapping outside the cave would have sounded

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Speaker 1: like hundreds of hoofs drumming on the ground. Own go, yeah,

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Speaker 1: He said that. He also points out that many different

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Speaker 1: ancient ancient cultures attributed thunder in the sky to hoofed

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Speaker 1: thunder gods. So in that sense, it makes perfect sense

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Speaker 1: that the reverberation within the caves would be interpreted as

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Speaker 1: thunder and inspired paintings of those same different hoofed entities

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Speaker 1: right there on the cave wall. Yeah. And what's really

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Speaker 1: cool about this is that it enhances the experience. Now

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Speaker 1: you're painting with sounds, right, You're not just depicting life,

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Speaker 1: You're you're using the acoustics to really ramp up the experience,

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Speaker 1: and especially if you're looking at it in a ceremonial sense.

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Speaker 1: And we've talked about how the rhythmic clapping is really

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Speaker 1: important in cultures. First of all, it's something that uh,

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Speaker 1: that will coordinate the synapsis for everybody, right, so that's

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Speaker 1: where the group inclusion thing to clap. The Second of all,

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Speaker 1: it's something that is um intrinsic to ceremonies. So if

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Speaker 1: you're trying to get everybody together and dance and song

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Speaker 1: and to tell stories, then clapping is really important. Everyone's

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Speaker 1: looping up signaps is firing at the same time, getting

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Speaker 1: in the same head zone. You know. In this I

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Speaker 1: can't help but be reminded of contemporary artists and in

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Speaker 1: a niche Kapoor, because all these you know, wonderful, often

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Speaker 1: a large scale sculptures, but there's a mirror piece, a

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Speaker 1: concave mirror at the High Museum or in Atlanta, and

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Speaker 1: you stand before it and you move around in front

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Speaker 1: of it, and of course the mirrors alter how you

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Speaker 1: appear and those around you appear. But it also plays

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Speaker 1: with sound and you can you can have one person

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Speaker 1: stand a little closer and a little person uh stand

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Speaker 1: a little further back from it, and uh it alters

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Speaker 1: the way you hear each other. So the idea of

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Speaker 1: creating art and sound visual art and sonic art all

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Speaker 1: wrapped up into one has been with us for a

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Speaker 1: long time, it would see. Yeah, especially if you consider

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Speaker 1: symbolic thought, and uh this this was actually brought to

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Speaker 1: light pretty recently that Homo sapiens are not the only

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Speaker 1: one ones who are capable of symbolic thought, and researchers

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Speaker 1: this year discovered as shell engraved with a geometric pattern

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Speaker 1: at h erectus site known as Tranil on the Indonesian

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Speaker 1: island of Java, and that dates to between five four

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Speaker 1: hundred thirty thousand years ago. I bring this up because

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Speaker 1: it becomes an important aspect of how we order the world. Okay,

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Speaker 1: we need symbols, symbols or the basis of language. So

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Speaker 1: if you have cave art, if you have sound acoustics

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Speaker 1: interplaying with that, then you also have this ability to

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Speaker 1: kind of take hold of abstract thought and actually change

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Speaker 1: behavior based on symbolism. And some would even argue that

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Speaker 1: symbolic thought has ushered in morality or codes of living.

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Speaker 1: So that's why I think it's so important for all

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Speaker 1: this stuff to be considered as being wrapped up as

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Speaker 1: sort of one thing and not necessarily teased out as

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Speaker 1: its own. Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing ancient Aliens about this idea.

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Speaker 1: I mean it gets right down to the heart of

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Speaker 1: what humans are and what has allowed humans and considerably

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Speaker 1: could have allowed Neanderthal or Homorectus to ascend to the

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Speaker 1: heights that they have indeed, which would bring us to Stonehenge,

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Speaker 1: because there couldn't be, you know, anything more enigmatic wrapped

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Speaker 1: up in a mystery and then pierced with a tiny

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Speaker 1: plastic sword of confusion. Yeah, I think Stonehenge is that

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Speaker 1: what we did in our two episodes. Did we pierce

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Speaker 1: it with the tiny sort of confusion? So many swords

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Speaker 1: of confusion? Yeah, And I think that speaks to how

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Speaker 1: complex it is. Yeah. Yeah, I mean Stonehenge really resonates

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Speaker 1: with everyone because it is this, this amazing site that

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Speaker 1: clearly has a lot of thought involved in it, a

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Speaker 1: lot of mental construction and symbolism, and we are often

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Speaker 1: at pains to really understand what it meant from modern perspective.

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Speaker 1: A lot of great work has gone into it, and

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Speaker 1: we have a lot of great, great answers now to

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Speaker 1: what went into it at different phases, and some of

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Speaker 1: the ideas out there do evolve around the way Stonehenge

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Speaker 1: sounded as well as looked. Yeah, and um, as we

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Speaker 1: had discussed before, this Stonehenge is something that has been

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Speaker 1: in the works for hundreds and hundreds of years. So

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Speaker 1: think about all those people, all those generations adding to it, um,

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Speaker 1: adding symbolic layers to it as well, and you get

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Speaker 1: to the soundscape of it, and that becomes a very

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Speaker 1: interesting aspect of it as well. Waller in the October

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Speaker 1: edition of Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, and

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Speaker 1: Waller at the time was acting as independent scholar, he

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Speaker 1: details how the shape of Stonehenge mimics the patterns of

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Speaker 1: positive and negative interference produced by two sources of sound,

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Speaker 1: an auditory illusion that may have been imbued with something

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Speaker 1: that's in like otherworldly significance by a culture that didn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily understand the physics of the phenomenon, but sort of

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Speaker 1: understood that there was something happening. Yeah. He says that

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Speaker 1: the Stonehenge might have worked as kind of a giant

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Speaker 1: sound wave interference filter. And and the interference here occurs

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Speaker 1: when when these we have two instruments that would would

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Speaker 1: play at the sing at the same time the same note,

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00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:16,640
Speaker 1: each creates sound waves that have alternating high and low

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Speaker 1: pressure segments, so when the high and low pressure segments collide,

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00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:25,760
Speaker 1: they cancel each other out. Now, Waller asked blindfolded participants

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Speaker 1: to do this, to basically move around in a circle

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Speaker 1: with two pipers playing notes in the field. I wonder

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00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:35,680
Speaker 1: if this is expressed on the call out for study participants. Hey,

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00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:37,919
Speaker 1: we were doing a scientific study. We need you to

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Speaker 1: walk around blindfolded in Stonehenge while people play pipes. I

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Speaker 1: know it sounds like the plot for like this is

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Speaker 1: final top part too, you know. Yeah, I'm thinking yeah,

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Speaker 1: that or or the wicker Man or something. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: sound like it's going to end. Well, no it doesn't.

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Speaker 1: But but they were asked to do this, and uh

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Speaker 1: they they were the listeners who were taken through spaces

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Speaker 1: where the sound is amplified space just where the sound

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Speaker 1: waves collide out of phase and our muted so loud quiet,

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00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:08,480
Speaker 1: loud quiet, and so on and so on. So they

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Speaker 1: did this, and he reported that, um, the same sort

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Speaker 1: of auditory effect was happening here when he compared it

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Speaker 1: to Stonehenge and the piper stones. Um, and also what

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Speaker 1: would have been in place, because remember Stonehenge right now

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Speaker 1: is not complete. It's just sort of um a shell

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Speaker 1: of itself. Indeed, Stonehenges that stands today is incomplete. So

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Speaker 1: if you were if you're going to study the acoustics

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Speaker 1: of stone Hinge, sometimes you have to actually work with

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Speaker 1: fake stone hinges as well, as we'll see in the

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Speaker 1: study of Dr Bruna Facinda of the University of Salford

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Speaker 1: in the UK. UH. This guy like like Waller studying

427
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:52,719
Speaker 1: the acoustics of Stonehenge. But since the original stone Hinge

428
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:55,919
Speaker 1: isn't complete, some of the stones are toppled uh and

429
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:59,720
Speaker 1: also didn't have access to electric generators that would be

430
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:02,680
Speaker 1: needed run the equipment. They turned to the World War

431
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:07,440
Speaker 1: One Memorial of Stonehenge replica in Maryhill Museum in Washington

432
00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:10,639
Speaker 1: State here in the United States, which which is interesting

433
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:13,960
Speaker 1: to think of studying this this ancient location by by

434
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:18,240
Speaker 1: by using this as well as a World War One memorial. Um,

435
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:20,320
Speaker 1: I'm glad they could use car Hinge. Journey of the

436
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:25,320
Speaker 1: other generations that would change. Yeah. And didn't they pop balloons?

437
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:28,000
Speaker 1: I believe I believe so. Yeah. Um, And the reason

438
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:30,680
Speaker 1: is because they couldn't bring in electricity, so they're trying

439
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 1: to just do some some auditory noises that they could

440
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:37,600
Speaker 1: then determine the k rate of energy and figure out

441
00:25:38,320 --> 00:25:42,640
Speaker 1: the energy time curves at measured positions. Now, the studies

442
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:46,920
Speaker 1: conclusion is that Stonehenge was a reflective environment and which

443
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 1: any sound is made to reverberate due to the flat

444
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:54,360
Speaker 1: heart services. So we're talking about a one second reverberation time. Yeah,

445
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 1: and that would certainly be enough to be noticeable by

446
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:59,919
Speaker 1: anybody that's entering into the circle. Uh. And it's it's

447
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 1: also an optimal reverberation time for large lecture halls, ensuring

448
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: that a good speech is interpreted intelligibly by those in

449
00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 1: the vicinity. Right. So you know, again we are not

450
00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 1: exactly certain how it was used, why it was used,

451
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:21,200
Speaker 1: but it's very obvious that there was that that time

452
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,880
Speaker 1: will apps and sound, and that the person entering that

453
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:30,160
Speaker 1: space might have experienced whatever it was, ceremonial or otherwise

454
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:34,639
Speaker 1: at an elevated level, an altered state, given all the

455
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 1: other data and stimuli and meaning surrounding it. Indeed, um,

456
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:45,199
Speaker 1: now you pointed out the flat hard surfaces, and uh,

457
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:47,400
Speaker 1: it takes me back. I believe it was was Waller

458
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:51,399
Speaker 1: who pointed out that at times they could actually find

459
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: art in caves by clapping and hearing where the reverberations. Right, yeah,

460
00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:58,119
Speaker 1: and so you end up getting into that sort of

461
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:02,680
Speaker 1: chicken and egg, right did they? Did they paint uh? This, uh? This,

462
00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:06,320
Speaker 1: this horned beast on this on this hard flat surface

463
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:09,639
Speaker 1: because it's easier to paint things on a hard flat surface,

464
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 1: and it's kind of the standard. Or was it because

465
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: of the reverberation the sonic residence of that particular spot.

466
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 1: It's hard to say. Kurt Hopkins, writing for Arts Technical says, scientists,

467
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:26,280
Speaker 1: whether acoustic scientists or archaeologists, are for good reason reticent

468
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:30,639
Speaker 1: to draw conclusions that are not based on provable, duplicable facts.

469
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 1: But at least we can do this picture. What's such

470
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 1: a structure with such an acoustical profile would have meant

471
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 1: experientially to visitors? The human imagination values form the circular

472
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:46,040
Speaker 1: form of Stonehenge and the relationship of points therein must

473
00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:49,919
Speaker 1: have been lent in otherworldly dynamic by the special character

474
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 1: of its sound. Indeed, and again, I think so much

475
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:55,160
Speaker 1: of that is is so easy to overlook in our

476
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:58,960
Speaker 1: modern environment, where we're just surrounded by by environments that

477
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: are artificial and eight ultimately artificial sound experiences. And then

478
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: you know every album or SoundCloud file that we've ever

479
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: pumped into our head to augment our experience of reality

480
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:15,240
Speaker 1: or even to augment our experience of another artificial reality.

481
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:18,639
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how crazy our modern experiences. We're listening

482
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:23,040
Speaker 1: to artificial soundscapes while we plug our head into a book,

483
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 1: or or playing or playing a video game, or maybe

484
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 1: we're watching a separate film. All of this is going on. Uh,

485
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:33,359
Speaker 1: it's easy to lose track of what artificial sound and

486
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:37,000
Speaker 1: artificial stimuli would have meant to early people. Well, and

487
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 1: I was even thinking about what it means to us

488
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 1: now and how important it is. And we plumed this

489
00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:45,800
Speaker 1: a little bit in our episode on time and perception

490
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 1: and music and how we can so easily alter it,

491
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 1: and we try to do that. We try to alter

492
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 1: our day to day experience and find some meaning it

493
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 1: through art through music. So it would make sense that

494
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:01,959
Speaker 1: if you were devoid of of the music that we

495
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 1: know today, that this would become exponentially important in your

496
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 1: world as an early human indeed now And in closing,

497
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 1: we wanna, we wanna lead out here with a great

498
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: example of almost modern archaeo acoustics, if that makes sense,

499
00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 1: kind of a modern take on some of these presumed

500
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: ancient practices of utilizing the natural acoustic properties of caves.

501
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the Great stalac pipe organ Um, and

502
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: you'll find this in Larie Caverns of Virginia. This h

503
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: what what we're talking about here is arguably the largest

504
00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 1: musical instrument in the world because instead of using pipes,

505
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 1: this organ is wired to us little soft rubber mallets

506
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 1: that gently strikes stalagtites of varying lengths and thickness. So

507
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 1: it looks like when when you look up a picture

508
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 1: of this, it looks like something that the Phantom of

509
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 1: the Opera or Vincent Prices is Dr fives would play

510
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 1: because it's in a cave. And here's this this sort

511
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 1: of old time like you know, nineteen fifties organ um.

512
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 1: You play the keys, little mount strike the stalactites, but

513
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 1: to achieve the kind of precise musical scale you need

514
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 1: to actually play the organ. The chosen stalactites, uh cover

515
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 1: a range of over three point five acres. But since

516
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: you're in this enclosed cave environment, you can hear the

517
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 1: music throughout. Yeah, this organ was invented and built in

518
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four by Leland Sprinkle, a mathematician and electronics scientists,

519
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 1: and it took him over three years to complete it. Uh,

520
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 1: we're talking about looking at each of these stalactites and

521
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 1: trying to figure out their thickness and how much they're

522
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: going to conduct sound, and then wiring up over five

523
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:53,800
Speaker 1: miles of these chosen stalactites to create this network for

524
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 1: the organ. It's crazy. I mean, i'm, i'm. In recent years,

525
00:30:57,720 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 1: I've i've I've gotten big on the idea that you know,

526
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 1: caven vironments are special and we shouldn't mess with them

527
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 1: too much. But if you're going to mess with the

528
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:08,440
Speaker 1: game environment, I guess turn it into an amazing pipe organ.

529
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:11,800
Speaker 1: Um Sprinkle And this was interesting too. I was reading this,

530
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:16,680
Speaker 1: of all places, on DJ Foods blog, his far fabulous

531
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 1: blog about music and comics and pop culture stuff, but

532
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 1: he mentioned that Sprinkle got the idea for this after

533
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 1: his son banged his head on a stalag type and

534
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:30,959
Speaker 1: it rung with a quote pleasant sound. I love it.

535
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 1: I love people like Leland Sprinkle. He's like, and now

536
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 1: I can create the world's largest instrument underground US. Yeah,

537
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 1: and it's uh appparently the used to you could buy

538
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 1: vinyl records of music uh that that that was produced

539
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 1: using this pipe organ. And in two thousand and eleven,

540
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 1: the Finnish Swedish music collective Peppe de Lux actually became

541
00:31:55,960 --> 00:31:59,480
Speaker 1: the first artist who write and record an original composition

542
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 1: on the Great Stalac pipe organ. Uh. And you can

543
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:04,719
Speaker 1: find that out the name of the find that out there.

544
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:06,719
Speaker 1: The name of the album is a Queen of the

545
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:08,720
Speaker 1: Wave and uh. And also you can just look up

546
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 1: DJ Foods post about it. I believe he has an

547
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 1: embedded SoundCloud. I'll be sure to link to that, as

548
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: well as some other of the interesting articles we've discussed

549
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: here in the landing page for this podcast episode. All Right,

550
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 1: what do you guys think, um, when it comes to

551
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:27,680
Speaker 1: our chao acoustics? Is this just the old pattern recognition

552
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 1: of the mind or is this intentional ritualized landscapes? Yeah?

553
00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 1: Or is it you know, is somewhere in between. We'd

554
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:38,080
Speaker 1: love to hear from everybody. Uh. It's certainly an issue

555
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 1: that that people seem to have strong opinions about. Um,

556
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: where are you gonna find us? Well, you're gonna find

557
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 1: us stuff to blow your mind dot com. That's our

558
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 1: our website. That's our mother page. That's where you'll find

559
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 1: all of our podcast episodes are blog post our videos,

560
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:54,040
Speaker 1: links out to our various social media accounts. And if

561
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 1: you would like to send us a missive please do

562
00:32:56,800 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 1: we like to hear from you guys a lot? You

563
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 1: can send us an email at blow the Mind at

564
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 1: how staff works dot com. For more illness and thousands

565
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how staff works dot com