Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to All your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and Julie Douglas. And in
Speaker 1: this episode we're talking about sound, which is which is
Speaker 1: good because this podcast is is sonic by its very nature.
Speaker 1: That's right. It is a sound that is traveling into
Speaker 1: your holes and hopefully it's pleasant. But we wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about sound more as an aspect of art and
Speaker 1: spirituality and and and even a sound escape that exists
Speaker 1: within nature and the ways in which humans have um
Speaker 1: interacted with us. Yeah, it's a it's a fascinating topic
Speaker 1: and a lot of it really just gets down to
Speaker 1: the heart of how do we interact with our world? Uh,
Speaker 1: what is our sense experience of the world, and what
Speaker 1: is our our our listening ex into the world. How
Speaker 1: do we take in the soundscape around us? How do
Speaker 1: we deal with artificial soundscapes. We live in a world
Speaker 1: of just over overpowering access to soundscapes. You can go
Speaker 1: online and you can find just about anything in the
Speaker 1: natural or unnatural world to listen to and stream it
Speaker 1: right into your head. Well, and then there's just environmental
Speaker 1: sounds around us, um and you had mentioned this earlier.
Speaker 1: We really take for granted the fact that we can
Speaker 1: manipulate sound around us so easily. Oh yeah, And I
Speaker 1: mean any given structure, any kind of artificial creation that
Speaker 1: we've made, or any manipulation of a natural environment, and
Speaker 1: you know, we're adjusting the way that we hear the world.
Speaker 1: You grow some hedges, great, you've you've just recreated the
Speaker 1: sonic experience of your environment. You build a house, same thing,
Speaker 1: you build a cathedral, same thing. Yeah, these are more
Speaker 1: like analog examples of the sort of technology that we
Speaker 1: have at our disposal today. But what if you were
Speaker 1: ancient man, ancient human in back in the day and
Speaker 1: you had only the your surroundings to really play with sound,
Speaker 1: and you have some instruments, okay, but you had your
Speaker 1: hands to clap with, and you had things to bounce
Speaker 1: that sound off of. And that's where something like caves
Speaker 1: become incredibly interesting. Yes, yeah, I mean especially and we
Speaker 1: were just talking about how the environment outside of our
Speaker 1: office space is essentially an artificial canyon, and then there's
Speaker 1: an artificial river of roaring traffic and all of this
Speaker 1: this stuff, and it's it's just easy to to to
Speaker 1: take all of it for granted, and just to to
Speaker 1: overlook the manipulation of sound that's going on. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: imagine yourself in a time where you have just this
Speaker 1: this natural landscape and the soundscape that exists on top
Speaker 1: of it, and then you encounter this cave. What happens
Speaker 1: when you encounter this cave, assuming nothing jumps out of
Speaker 1: it and eats you. I mean, just the censory of
Speaker 1: experience of a cave is overwhelming. I mean, we I
Speaker 1: feel like today we will realize that in terms of
Speaker 1: our site, in terms of of the the tightness of
Speaker 1: the space. I mean, it's still the stuff of horror
Speaker 1: movie and uh yeah, but but but just think about
Speaker 1: it also from the point of view of sound. Now,
Speaker 1: this is something that really arrested the imagination of Esther
Speaker 1: ingle Arcle writing for I oh nine, And she talks
Speaker 1: about the novel A Passage to India by Ian Forster.
Speaker 1: And in this novel there's something called the Malabar Caves,
Speaker 1: and she says they're deep, and they're complicated, and any
Speaker 1: noise made inside of them, from the scrape of a
Speaker 1: match to the squeak of a boot heel, comes back
Speaker 1: as thunderous noise, the sound of the caves drive two
Speaker 1: British women temporarily mad. And this, this whole idea really
Speaker 1: captured her imagination. And so she says, to her internal disappointment, Um,
Speaker 1: these caves, which are based on the b of our caves,
Speaker 1: do not have the power to drive people into altered
Speaker 1: states of mind with sound. But she says, hey does
Speaker 1: turn out that there are actually some caves around the
Speaker 1: world that do. And before you think, oh, well, that's
Speaker 1: just some sort of crazy fictional creation, though I mean
Speaker 1: it did serve a literary point. She points us out
Speaker 1: in her article that uh, it's it's really about the
Speaker 1: the the coming revolution in India, the gap between the
Speaker 1: understanding of uh, the Indians and the British. So it's
Speaker 1: it works. It's not just the forester making stuff up
Speaker 1: and putting it in the book. No, it's a nice
Speaker 1: narrative technique to talk about the unknown. But but then
Speaker 1: if you actually set off to find that cave, you
Speaker 1: would be somewhe disappoint You would be very disappointed. But
Speaker 1: if you are an archo acoustic researcher, you probably would
Speaker 1: know of several caves. But in order to get to
Speaker 1: those caves, we have to talk about what archo acoustics
Speaker 1: is in the first place. Yes, on a very simple level,
Speaker 1: this is just the study of sound in an archaeological context.
Speaker 1: Um is simple as is, here's an archaeological site. We
Speaker 1: put a lot of effort into what does it look like,
Speaker 1: what did it look like back in the day, reconstructing it,
Speaker 1: reading any signs and symbols on it, and figuring out
Speaker 1: what what things were meant to symbolize. But then when
Speaker 1: you get into archaeo acoustics, it's also how did this
Speaker 1: place sound? What was the sound experience of this space?
Speaker 1: And when you start talking about the sound experience of
Speaker 1: of of a space, I realized that can sound a
Speaker 1: little bit new ag and hippie dippy, And just try
Speaker 1: and eject that from your mind as much as possible, because, again,
Speaker 1: just to bore it down, the sound experience of a
Speaker 1: space is vital. Sound is an important sensory experience and
Speaker 1: I think it's it's obvious that it would be if
Speaker 1: if not the primary driving factor in the creation of
Speaker 1: of of these ancient sites. It certainly is a factor
Speaker 1: in the experience of those sites. Yeah, so it definitely
Speaker 1: is a relationship of the sensory world and the human
Speaker 1: and that monument or that natural um area in which
Speaker 1: the person is sitting in. But they also measure the
Speaker 1: acoustic parameters of a place by use of electronic instrumentations,
Speaker 1: So they are trying to figure out the physics of
Speaker 1: sound here and how it's playing out. Now, some would
Speaker 1: take issue with the field of argo acoustics. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: when you really get down to it, there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of science to back it up. A lot of
Speaker 1: this and not to say there there have there have
Speaker 1: not been studies and they're there are not some some
Speaker 1: fascinating findings, and we'll get into some of that, but
Speaker 1: at heart, a lot of it breaks down to us
Speaker 1: trying to put ourselves in the mindset and in the
Speaker 1: sense experience of increasingly early humans. Um. And when we're
Speaker 1: also when we're talking about the sounds that an environment makes,
Speaker 1: that an official environment makes, or even an augmented one
Speaker 1: such as a decorated cave, we're talking about percussion, We're
Speaker 1: talking about the ringing of rocks, We're talking about echoes,
Speaker 1: and we're even talking about wind water and heat expansion sounds. Uh,
Speaker 1: any kind of sounds that consider a part of that environment.
Speaker 1: But yeah, as I believe us researcher Stephen Waller points out, um,
Speaker 1: and he's one of the primary researchers we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about here. UM, A lot of this is about considering
Speaker 1: the physiological and mental effects of sound and how we
Speaker 1: use and have used, and continue to use ritual to
Speaker 1: generate altered mind states and aids visuary experience. And again,
Speaker 1: today we have access to all of these soundscapes, artificial
Speaker 1: and uh and natural. We have all you know, you
Speaker 1: can put in any kind of ambient or high energy
Speaker 1: album to to augment your headspace, but in earlier times
Speaker 1: that wasn't an option. Yeah, and I think the main
Speaker 1: issue with our cho acoustics is again, uh, the interpretations.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you can hear various soundscapes in nature in
Speaker 1: a cave, for instance, and there may be some symbolism
Speaker 1: to accompany it. But I think that the um that
Speaker 1: the thing that's being levied against arco acoustics is that
Speaker 1: we are tern recognition machines. So just because we see
Speaker 1: a correlation here doesn't necessarily mean that there is a causation.
Speaker 1: In other words, that people were um manipulating sound intentionally
Speaker 1: in these spaces for ceremonial purposes. For instance, now esther
Speaker 1: Angle Arcis writes, although the idea is not proved or
Speaker 1: even provable, I do like it. It indicates there is
Speaker 1: a gulf between two mindsets, not separated by geographical distance,
Speaker 1: but by time. Two people standing in the same spot
Speaker 1: and experiencing the same phenomenon will perceive them completely differently.
Speaker 1: For one person the experience is a hallucinatory moment bringing
Speaker 1: together sound, vision, and religion, while the other will just
Speaker 1: see some pictures without taking note of anything else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that's well put. And it it reminds me of
Speaker 1: Jerusalem Syndrome a bit which we've we've discussed in our
Speaker 1: Standall Syndrome episode about the impact of art and and
Speaker 1: also historical sites on the person and so much it
Speaker 1: is subjective what information you're bringing into it, with your
Speaker 1: own personal history, your mythological or religious interpretation of the world,
Speaker 1: um and and certainly a lot of that is is
Speaker 1: at play here. Yeah, And so it kind of boils
Speaker 1: down to this. In archao acoustics, it could very well
Speaker 1: be that there just happened to be a soundscape that
Speaker 1: worked really well with symbolism. In ceremony, or it could
Speaker 1: be that, uh, the culture at that time really was
Speaker 1: trying to manipulate those areas and have it work with
Speaker 1: their mindsets of how the world worked. So we're never
Speaker 1: going to get to a definitive answer here. It definitely
Speaker 1: is that the chicken or the egg argument. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I can see where it's a hard sell for someone
Speaker 1: to to to at least interpret some of this, uh,
Speaker 1: this effort as oh, well, they're saying that Stonehenge or
Speaker 1: um you know, or or or this cave or that
Speaker 1: cave exists primarily as an historic site because it changed
Speaker 1: the way people heard sounds. Um. I can see where
Speaker 1: that would be difficult. I would be like saying, well,
Speaker 1: stone Hinge exists because people like the way it tasted.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it. We're so we have such a
Speaker 1: visual mindset anyway. But but when you create a what
Speaker 1: is it ultimately a sacred site? I feel like any
Speaker 1: way that that site augments your sensory experience would be
Speaker 1: important to the people who made it and important to
Speaker 1: study as well. Yeah. Yeah, And and again artificial buildings, uh,
Speaker 1: artificial constructions, they change the environment. They change the micro environment.
Speaker 1: As we've discussed in the previous podcasts, but also just
Speaker 1: as in terms of sound, you walk into a cathedral,
Speaker 1: you walk into a um, into into a Greek amphitheater, Uh,
Speaker 1: the sound changes. Your sound experience of this space is
Speaker 1: different than it would be had at an unaugmented portion
Speaker 1: of the Earth. Well, and one thing too that I
Speaker 1: didn't mention is that one of the criticisms love it
Speaker 1: against archaeo acoustics is this bias that early humans were
Speaker 1: not sophisticated enough to really understand that so sound sound
Speaker 1: could be manipulated. So you could say, oh, yes, in
Speaker 1: a Greek amphitheater, that's totally intentional, right, that someone might
Speaker 1: take issue with it in a cave, Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: something to consider. Yeah, but but but then it also
Speaker 1: kind of comes down to someone saying, well, early man
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly appreciate the fact that the cave is changing
Speaker 1: the way it sounds come out like that's that's ludicrous.
Speaker 1: So so you know they're like, there're two sides. Indeed,
Speaker 1: all right, let's take a quick break and when we
Speaker 1: get back, we're going to talk about spread Pallory. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back and we're headed to China. Yes, an ancient
Speaker 1: Mayan sight with a ball court, which sounds really sporty
Speaker 1: of them. Right. You sound like you're you're showing real
Speaker 1: estate right now. I know, and I feel like it's
Speaker 1: property too. And look, this is wellcore where there were
Speaker 1: their wide outfits and play tennis. But in fact that
Speaker 1: is not at all with this ball court was about No, no,
Speaker 1: this uh, this whole site thousand years old and u
Speaker 1: uh you have a quarter of this as you have
Speaker 1: the pyramid, the kind of ziggarati ish Mayan pyramid that
Speaker 1: I'll try to include a picture of this with the
Speaker 1: landing page for this episode because you really have to
Speaker 1: look at it to get into everything that we're talking
Speaker 1: about here. But uh, you have this pyramid, you have
Speaker 1: this ball court, and indeed they're not playing basketball here.
Speaker 1: This is a life and death game that is that
Speaker 1: is occurring. Yeah, just let's foreground this and the fact
Speaker 1: that the Mayans were really big on sacrifice, and we
Speaker 1: think of sacrifice as this terrible cultural thing, but if
Speaker 1: you happen to live um during that time in the
Speaker 1: mind culture, then it would be um, you would have
Speaker 1: very high statue if you were someone who were who
Speaker 1: was going to be sacrificed, your family would be held
Speaker 1: in high esteem. So the culture was revolved around this idea.
Speaker 1: And so you have a ball court, which sounds like
Speaker 1: a sporty thing, but in fact it's this this field
Speaker 1: where the drama of life is being played out. And
Speaker 1: it was first excavated in nineteen twenty by archaeologist Sylvani's Morley.
Speaker 1: Um it's five hundred and forty one ft long and
Speaker 1: two hundred and forty feet wide, and it is the
Speaker 1: largest in Mesoamerica, with walls on two sides and small
Speaker 1: temples at either end. And I also, I just want
Speaker 1: to throw in that if anyone say, looking at this,
Speaker 1: you knowit brutal sport, it's uh. I mean ultimately all
Speaker 1: sports are just mock wars anyway, and maybe this is
Speaker 1: just a little more honest sport. Yeah. The idea behind
Speaker 1: this that I've seen is that, um, again, it's a
Speaker 1: life and death game that was played in the person
Speaker 1: who won, who actually offered his head to be executed. Again,
Speaker 1: this is because uh, in this mindset, you know, it
Speaker 1: would be a great honor to to sacrifice yourself. So UM,
Speaker 1: keep that in mind, because I want to go back
Speaker 1: to the structure of this, the temples actually formed a
Speaker 1: whispering gallery. The amplified sounds spoken within them, and you
Speaker 1: can stand in this temple or by the temple side. Again,
Speaker 1: you've got two walls on either side and then temples
Speaker 1: on either side, and you can speak in a low
Speaker 1: voice and you can be heard distinctly at the end
Speaker 1: of the court five hundred feet away. And the idea,
Speaker 1: at least according to David Loveman, who is one of
Speaker 1: the researchers probing the acoustic properties of ancient sites, is
Speaker 1: that um, the minds could create other sounds, not just whispering.
Speaker 1: They could do a whooping bird flying from right to left,
Speaker 1: and he said that the priests could also make sounds
Speaker 1: that sounded like fierce animals like rattlesnakes and jaguars. Again,
Speaker 1: this is spectacle, this is life and death, and it
Speaker 1: would make sense that these whispering galleries would help to
Speaker 1: sort of ratchet up the suspense. Yeah, and it's also
Speaker 1: worth noting here just to really get down to what
Speaker 1: the minds were doing with their buildings and how they
Speaker 1: were manipulating perception. The pyramid temple um with its again,
Speaker 1: with its step like sides. If you're viewing this um
Speaker 1: and you're in you're viewing it in the starting in
Speaker 1: the spring equinox uh time, when the day and night
Speaker 1: are at equal lengths. You'll you can see a shadow
Speaker 1: glide down the temple steps and over several days transform
Speaker 1: into different shapes as it moves across the courtyard. And
Speaker 1: most scholars believe that this, uh, this shadow represents the
Speaker 1: feathered Mayan god called Culkin. So if they're manipulating shadow
Speaker 1: and light, I don't think it's any great stretch to
Speaker 1: imagine the manipulating sound as well. Yeah. And the fact
Speaker 1: of the matter is too, is that this is all
Speaker 1: sort of one big ceremonial celestial marker wrapped up in one,
Speaker 1: as you say, with sound with light, And it would
Speaker 1: make sense that this is probably one of the most
Speaker 1: important areas in which life is playing out in Mayan culture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, in a this is the center of their universe,
Speaker 1: you know, it's the center of their culture. Uh. And
Speaker 1: they have all of their their mythology wrapped up in
Speaker 1: it and around it. So yeah, Now you can find
Speaker 1: whispering galleries throughout the world. Grand Central Station in New
Speaker 1: York is one an unintentional one. I believe, you know,
Speaker 1: the arches help to create this sonic illusion. You can
Speaker 1: whisper in one area and be heard another. Um, let
Speaker 1: me see the Saint Paul's Cathedral in London and the
Speaker 1: statuary hall in the US Capitol Building. And apparently when
Speaker 1: I was doing this research, this is a sort of
Speaker 1: a unique way for someone to propose marriage. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: you go, using the sacred aspects of the site. However
Speaker 1: unintentional too, to take part of a sacred ritual. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of, you know, a romantic notion to know
Speaker 1: that you're you're ask for marriage. I suppose is traveling
Speaker 1: along in this very intimate way cross base in times
Speaker 1: who beloved's ear? All right, Now we're gonna travel to uh,
Speaker 1: far different structure, sure, in fact, a natural structure, and
Speaker 1: that's the Liscow Caves. Uh. And these are of course
Speaker 1: located in France. You'll recognize the pictures, uh, ancient ancient
Speaker 1: illustrations of animals on the wall. Uh, you know, very
Speaker 1: stereotypical cave paintings. Um. So really a John back in time,
Speaker 1: far beyond the mirror a thousand years ago of the
Speaker 1: mine example we were discussing, Yeah, Warner Harzog actually documented
Speaker 1: them in his film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and in
Speaker 1: it you see herds of rocks, bulls, and horses depicted
Speaker 1: running along the walls. There's a sense of motion, and
Speaker 1: that is important in terms of archaeo acoustics. Stephen Waller
Speaker 1: of the research lab Rock Art Acoustics believes that the
Speaker 1: echoes of ritual clapping outside the cave would have sounded
Speaker 1: like hundreds of hoofs drumming on the ground. Own go, yeah,
Speaker 1: He said that. He also points out that many different
Speaker 1: ancient ancient cultures attributed thunder in the sky to hoofed
Speaker 1: thunder gods. So in that sense, it makes perfect sense
Speaker 1: that the reverberation within the caves would be interpreted as
Speaker 1: thunder and inspired paintings of those same different hoofed entities
Speaker 1: right there on the cave wall. Yeah. And what's really
Speaker 1: cool about this is that it enhances the experience. Now
Speaker 1: you're painting with sounds, right, You're not just depicting life,
Speaker 1: You're you're using the acoustics to really ramp up the experience,
Speaker 1: and especially if you're looking at it in a ceremonial sense.
Speaker 1: And we've talked about how the rhythmic clapping is really
Speaker 1: important in cultures. First of all, it's something that uh,
Speaker 1: that will coordinate the synapsis for everybody, right, so that's
Speaker 1: where the group inclusion thing to clap. The Second of all,
Speaker 1: it's something that is um intrinsic to ceremonies. So if
Speaker 1: you're trying to get everybody together and dance and song
Speaker 1: and to tell stories, then clapping is really important. Everyone's
Speaker 1: looping up signaps is firing at the same time, getting
Speaker 1: in the same head zone. You know. In this I
Speaker 1: can't help but be reminded of contemporary artists and in
Speaker 1: a niche Kapoor, because all these you know, wonderful, often
Speaker 1: a large scale sculptures, but there's a mirror piece, a
Speaker 1: concave mirror at the High Museum or in Atlanta, and
Speaker 1: you stand before it and you move around in front
Speaker 1: of it, and of course the mirrors alter how you
Speaker 1: appear and those around you appear. But it also plays
Speaker 1: with sound and you can you can have one person
Speaker 1: stand a little closer and a little person uh stand
Speaker 1: a little further back from it, and uh it alters
Speaker 1: the way you hear each other. So the idea of
Speaker 1: creating art and sound visual art and sonic art all
Speaker 1: wrapped up into one has been with us for a
Speaker 1: long time, it would see. Yeah, especially if you consider
Speaker 1: symbolic thought, and uh this this was actually brought to
Speaker 1: light pretty recently that Homo sapiens are not the only
Speaker 1: one ones who are capable of symbolic thought, and researchers
Speaker 1: this year discovered as shell engraved with a geometric pattern
Speaker 1: at h erectus site known as Tranil on the Indonesian
Speaker 1: island of Java, and that dates to between five four
Speaker 1: hundred thirty thousand years ago. I bring this up because
Speaker 1: it becomes an important aspect of how we order the world. Okay,
Speaker 1: we need symbols, symbols or the basis of language. So
Speaker 1: if you have cave art, if you have sound acoustics
Speaker 1: interplaying with that, then you also have this ability to
Speaker 1: kind of take hold of abstract thought and actually change
Speaker 1: behavior based on symbolism. And some would even argue that
Speaker 1: symbolic thought has ushered in morality or codes of living.
Speaker 1: So that's why I think it's so important for all
Speaker 1: this stuff to be considered as being wrapped up as
Speaker 1: sort of one thing and not necessarily teased out as
Speaker 1: its own. Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing ancient Aliens about this idea.
Speaker 1: I mean it gets right down to the heart of
Speaker 1: what humans are and what has allowed humans and considerably
Speaker 1: could have allowed Neanderthal or Homorectus to ascend to the
Speaker 1: heights that they have indeed, which would bring us to Stonehenge,
Speaker 1: because there couldn't be, you know, anything more enigmatic wrapped
Speaker 1: up in a mystery and then pierced with a tiny
Speaker 1: plastic sword of confusion. Yeah, I think Stonehenge is that
Speaker 1: what we did in our two episodes. Did we pierce
Speaker 1: it with the tiny sort of confusion? So many swords
Speaker 1: of confusion? Yeah, And I think that speaks to how
Speaker 1: complex it is. Yeah. Yeah, I mean Stonehenge really resonates
Speaker 1: with everyone because it is this, this amazing site that
Speaker 1: clearly has a lot of thought involved in it, a
Speaker 1: lot of mental construction and symbolism, and we are often
Speaker 1: at pains to really understand what it meant from modern perspective.
Speaker 1: A lot of great work has gone into it, and
Speaker 1: we have a lot of great, great answers now to
Speaker 1: what went into it at different phases, and some of
Speaker 1: the ideas out there do evolve around the way Stonehenge
Speaker 1: sounded as well as looked. Yeah, and um, as we
Speaker 1: had discussed before, this Stonehenge is something that has been
Speaker 1: in the works for hundreds and hundreds of years. So
Speaker 1: think about all those people, all those generations adding to it, um,
Speaker 1: adding symbolic layers to it as well, and you get
Speaker 1: to the soundscape of it, and that becomes a very
Speaker 1: interesting aspect of it as well. Waller in the October
Speaker 1: edition of Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, and
Speaker 1: Waller at the time was acting as independent scholar, he
Speaker 1: details how the shape of Stonehenge mimics the patterns of
Speaker 1: positive and negative interference produced by two sources of sound,
Speaker 1: an auditory illusion that may have been imbued with something
Speaker 1: that's in like otherworldly significance by a culture that didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily understand the physics of the phenomenon, but sort of
Speaker 1: understood that there was something happening. Yeah. He says that
Speaker 1: the Stonehenge might have worked as kind of a giant
Speaker 1: sound wave interference filter. And and the interference here occurs
Speaker 1: when when these we have two instruments that would would
Speaker 1: play at the sing at the same time the same note,
Speaker 1: each creates sound waves that have alternating high and low
Speaker 1: pressure segments, so when the high and low pressure segments collide,
Speaker 1: they cancel each other out. Now, Waller asked blindfolded participants
Speaker 1: to do this, to basically move around in a circle
Speaker 1: with two pipers playing notes in the field. I wonder
Speaker 1: if this is expressed on the call out for study participants. Hey,
Speaker 1: we were doing a scientific study. We need you to
Speaker 1: walk around blindfolded in Stonehenge while people play pipes. I
Speaker 1: know it sounds like the plot for like this is
Speaker 1: final top part too, you know. Yeah, I'm thinking yeah,
Speaker 1: that or or the wicker Man or something. It doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like it's going to end. Well, no it doesn't.
Speaker 1: But but they were asked to do this, and uh
Speaker 1: they they were the listeners who were taken through spaces
Speaker 1: where the sound is amplified space just where the sound
Speaker 1: waves collide out of phase and our muted so loud quiet,
Speaker 1: loud quiet, and so on and so on. So they
Speaker 1: did this, and he reported that, um, the same sort
Speaker 1: of auditory effect was happening here when he compared it
Speaker 1: to Stonehenge and the piper stones. Um, and also what
Speaker 1: would have been in place, because remember Stonehenge right now
Speaker 1: is not complete. It's just sort of um a shell
Speaker 1: of itself. Indeed, Stonehenges that stands today is incomplete. So
Speaker 1: if you were if you're going to study the acoustics
Speaker 1: of stone Hinge, sometimes you have to actually work with
Speaker 1: fake stone hinges as well, as we'll see in the
Speaker 1: study of Dr Bruna Facinda of the University of Salford
Speaker 1: in the UK. UH. This guy like like Waller studying
Speaker 1: the acoustics of Stonehenge. But since the original stone Hinge
Speaker 1: isn't complete, some of the stones are toppled uh and
Speaker 1: also didn't have access to electric generators that would be
Speaker 1: needed run the equipment. They turned to the World War
Speaker 1: One Memorial of Stonehenge replica in Maryhill Museum in Washington
Speaker 1: State here in the United States, which which is interesting
Speaker 1: to think of studying this this ancient location by by
Speaker 1: by using this as well as a World War One memorial. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm glad they could use car Hinge. Journey of the
Speaker 1: other generations that would change. Yeah. And didn't they pop balloons?
Speaker 1: I believe I believe so. Yeah. Um, And the reason
Speaker 1: is because they couldn't bring in electricity, so they're trying
Speaker 1: to just do some some auditory noises that they could
Speaker 1: then determine the k rate of energy and figure out
Speaker 1: the energy time curves at measured positions. Now, the studies
Speaker 1: conclusion is that Stonehenge was a reflective environment and which
Speaker 1: any sound is made to reverberate due to the flat
Speaker 1: heart services. So we're talking about a one second reverberation time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that would certainly be enough to be noticeable by
Speaker 1: anybody that's entering into the circle. Uh. And it's it's
Speaker 1: also an optimal reverberation time for large lecture halls, ensuring
Speaker 1: that a good speech is interpreted intelligibly by those in
Speaker 1: the vicinity. Right. So you know, again we are not
Speaker 1: exactly certain how it was used, why it was used,
Speaker 1: but it's very obvious that there was that that time
Speaker 1: will apps and sound, and that the person entering that
Speaker 1: space might have experienced whatever it was, ceremonial or otherwise
Speaker 1: at an elevated level, an altered state, given all the
Speaker 1: other data and stimuli and meaning surrounding it. Indeed, um,
Speaker 1: now you pointed out the flat hard surfaces, and uh,
Speaker 1: it takes me back. I believe it was was Waller
Speaker 1: who pointed out that at times they could actually find
Speaker 1: art in caves by clapping and hearing where the reverberations. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so you end up getting into that sort of
Speaker 1: chicken and egg, right did they? Did they paint uh? This, uh? This,
Speaker 1: this horned beast on this on this hard flat surface
Speaker 1: because it's easier to paint things on a hard flat surface,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of the standard. Or was it because
Speaker 1: of the reverberation the sonic residence of that particular spot.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say. Kurt Hopkins, writing for Arts Technical says, scientists,
Speaker 1: whether acoustic scientists or archaeologists, are for good reason reticent
Speaker 1: to draw conclusions that are not based on provable, duplicable facts.
Speaker 1: But at least we can do this picture. What's such
Speaker 1: a structure with such an acoustical profile would have meant
Speaker 1: experientially to visitors? The human imagination values form the circular
Speaker 1: form of Stonehenge and the relationship of points therein must
Speaker 1: have been lent in otherworldly dynamic by the special character
Speaker 1: of its sound. Indeed, and again, I think so much
Speaker 1: of that is is so easy to overlook in our
Speaker 1: modern environment, where we're just surrounded by by environments that
Speaker 1: are artificial and eight ultimately artificial sound experiences. And then
Speaker 1: you know every album or SoundCloud file that we've ever
Speaker 1: pumped into our head to augment our experience of reality
Speaker 1: or even to augment our experience of another artificial reality.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how crazy our modern experiences. We're listening
Speaker 1: to artificial soundscapes while we plug our head into a book,
Speaker 1: or or playing or playing a video game, or maybe
Speaker 1: we're watching a separate film. All of this is going on. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's easy to lose track of what artificial sound and
Speaker 1: artificial stimuli would have meant to early people. Well, and
Speaker 1: I was even thinking about what it means to us
Speaker 1: now and how important it is. And we plumed this
Speaker 1: a little bit in our episode on time and perception
Speaker 1: and music and how we can so easily alter it,
Speaker 1: and we try to do that. We try to alter
Speaker 1: our day to day experience and find some meaning it
Speaker 1: through art through music. So it would make sense that
Speaker 1: if you were devoid of of the music that we
Speaker 1: know today, that this would become exponentially important in your
Speaker 1: world as an early human indeed now And in closing,
Speaker 1: we wanna, we wanna lead out here with a great
Speaker 1: example of almost modern archaeo acoustics, if that makes sense,
Speaker 1: kind of a modern take on some of these presumed
Speaker 1: ancient practices of utilizing the natural acoustic properties of caves.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the Great stalac pipe organ Um, and
Speaker 1: you'll find this in Larie Caverns of Virginia. This h
Speaker 1: what what we're talking about here is arguably the largest
Speaker 1: musical instrument in the world because instead of using pipes,
Speaker 1: this organ is wired to us little soft rubber mallets
Speaker 1: that gently strikes stalagtites of varying lengths and thickness. So
Speaker 1: it looks like when when you look up a picture
Speaker 1: of this, it looks like something that the Phantom of
Speaker 1: the Opera or Vincent Prices is Dr fives would play
Speaker 1: because it's in a cave. And here's this this sort
Speaker 1: of old time like you know, nineteen fifties organ um.
Speaker 1: You play the keys, little mount strike the stalactites, but
Speaker 1: to achieve the kind of precise musical scale you need
Speaker 1: to actually play the organ. The chosen stalactites, uh cover
Speaker 1: a range of over three point five acres. But since
Speaker 1: you're in this enclosed cave environment, you can hear the
Speaker 1: music throughout. Yeah, this organ was invented and built in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four by Leland Sprinkle, a mathematician and electronics scientists,
Speaker 1: and it took him over three years to complete it. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're talking about looking at each of these stalactites and
Speaker 1: trying to figure out their thickness and how much they're
Speaker 1: going to conduct sound, and then wiring up over five
Speaker 1: miles of these chosen stalactites to create this network for
Speaker 1: the organ. It's crazy. I mean, i'm, i'm. In recent years,
Speaker 1: I've i've I've gotten big on the idea that you know,
Speaker 1: caven vironments are special and we shouldn't mess with them
Speaker 1: too much. But if you're going to mess with the
Speaker 1: game environment, I guess turn it into an amazing pipe organ.
Speaker 1: Um Sprinkle And this was interesting too. I was reading this,
Speaker 1: of all places, on DJ Foods blog, his far fabulous
Speaker 1: blog about music and comics and pop culture stuff, but
Speaker 1: he mentioned that Sprinkle got the idea for this after
Speaker 1: his son banged his head on a stalag type and
Speaker 1: it rung with a quote pleasant sound. I love it.
Speaker 1: I love people like Leland Sprinkle. He's like, and now
Speaker 1: I can create the world's largest instrument underground US. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's uh appparently the used to you could buy
Speaker 1: vinyl records of music uh that that that was produced
Speaker 1: using this pipe organ. And in two thousand and eleven,
Speaker 1: the Finnish Swedish music collective Peppe de Lux actually became
Speaker 1: the first artist who write and record an original composition
Speaker 1: on the Great Stalac pipe organ. Uh. And you can
Speaker 1: find that out the name of the find that out there.
Speaker 1: The name of the album is a Queen of the
Speaker 1: Wave and uh. And also you can just look up
Speaker 1: DJ Foods post about it. I believe he has an
Speaker 1: embedded SoundCloud. I'll be sure to link to that, as
Speaker 1: well as some other of the interesting articles we've discussed
Speaker 1: here in the landing page for this podcast episode. All Right,
Speaker 1: what do you guys think, um, when it comes to
Speaker 1: our chao acoustics? Is this just the old pattern recognition
Speaker 1: of the mind or is this intentional ritualized landscapes? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Or is it you know, is somewhere in between. We'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from everybody. Uh. It's certainly an issue
Speaker 1: that that people seem to have strong opinions about. Um,
Speaker 1: where are you gonna find us? Well, you're gonna find
Speaker 1: us stuff to blow your mind dot com. That's our
Speaker 1: our website. That's our mother page. That's where you'll find
Speaker 1: all of our podcast episodes are blog post our videos,
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Speaker 1: we like to hear from you guys a lot? You
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