The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment And The Tuning Of The World (49 page)

When there is no sound, hearing is most alert. It is the same idea that Rilke expresses in his
Duino Elegies
when he speaks of “die ununter-brochene Nachricht, die aus Stille sich bildet.” Silence is indeed news for those possessing clairaudience.

If we have a hope of improving the acoustic design of the world, it will be realizable only after the recovery of silence as a positive state in our lives. Still the noise in the mind: that is the first task—then everything else will follow in time.

EPILOGUE

The Music Beyond

Before man, before the invention of the ear, only the gods heard sounds. Music was then perfect. In both East and West arcane accounts hint at these times. In the
Sangīta-makaranda
(I, 4–6) we learn that there are two forms of sound, the
anāhata
, “unstruck,” and the
āhata
, “struck,” the first being a vibration of ether, which cannot be perceived by men but is the basis of all manifestation. “It forms permanent numerical patterns which are the basis of the world’s existence.”

This is identical with the Western concept of the Music of the Spheres, that is, music as rational order, which goes back to the Greeks, particularly to the school of Pythagoras. Having discovered the mathematical correspondence between the ratios of the harmonics in a sounding string, and noting that the planets and stars also appeared to move with perfect regularity, Pythagoras united discovery with intuition and conjectured that the two types of motion were both expressions of a perfect universal law, binding music and mathematics. Pythagoras is reported to have been able to hear the celestial music, though none of his disciples was able to do so. But the intuition persisted. Boethius
(AD
. 480–524) also believed in the Music of the Spheres.

How indeed could the swift mechanism of the sky move silently in its course? And although this sound does not reach our ears (as must for many reasons be the case), the extremely rapid motion of such great bodies could not be altogether without sound, especially since the courses of the stars are joined together by such mutual adaptation that nothing more equally compacted or united could be imagined. For some are borne higher and others lower, and all are revolved with a just impulse, and from their different inequalities an established order of their courses may be deduced. For this reason an established order of modulation cannot be lacking in this celestial revolution.

If one knew the mass and velocity of a spinning object, it would be possible theoretically to calculate its fundamental pitch. Johannes Kepler, who also believed in a perfect system binding music and astronomy, calculated the following pitches for each of the planets.

The Music of the Spheres represents eternal perfection. If we do not hear it, it is because we are imperfect. Shakespeare puts it eloquently in
The Merchant of Venice
(V, i).

Look, how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:

There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st

But in his motion like an angel sings. …

Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

But our imperfection is not merely moral; it is physical also. For man, the perfectly pure and mathematically defined sound exists as a theoretical concept only. The French mathematician Fourier knew and stated this when he was developing his theory of harmonic analysis. Distortion results the moment a sound is produced, for the sounding object first has to overcome its own inertia to be set in motion, and in doing this little imperfections creep into the transmitted sound. The same thing is true ofour ears. For the ear to begin vibrating, it too has first to overcome its own inertia, and accordingly it too introduces more distortions.

All the sounds we hear are imperfect. For a sound to be totally free of onset distortion, it would have to have been initiated before our lifetime. If it were also continued after our death so that we knew no interruption in it, then we could comprehend it as being perfect. But a sound initiated before our birth, continued unabated and unchanging throughout our lifetime and extended beyond our death, would be perceived by us as—
silence
.

This is why, as I intimated at the beginning of this book, all research into sound must conclude with silence—not the silence of negative vacuum, but the positive silence of perfection and fulfillment. Thus, just as man strives for perfection, all sound aspires to the condition of silence, to the eternal life of the Music of the Spheres.

Can silence be heard? Yes, if we could extend our consciousness outward to the universe and to eternity, we could hear silence. Through the practice of contemplation, little by little, the muscles and the mind relax and the whole body opens out to become an ear. When the Indian yogi attains a state of liberation from the senses, he hears the
anāhata
, the “unstruck” sound. Then perfection is achieved. The secret hieroglyph of the Universe is revealed. Number becomes audible and flows down filling the receiver with tones and light.

Appendixes

APPENDIX I

Sample Sound Notation Systems

This isobel map of Stanley Park in Vancouver, British Columbia, shows average sound levels in different locations. Sound level measurements were taken on the footpaths at intervals of about 100 yards, between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on several successive Wednesdays during May, June and July of 1973. The weather each day was similar—clear and bright with temperatures in the middle 60s and 70s F. At each point three readings were taken, ten seconds apart, and later averaged together for the construction of the isobels
.

Another sound event map, prepared by Michael Southworth in downtown Boston, that attempts to relate areas with similar and contrasting acoustic environments
.

This chart shows log notes of sound events taken during a 24-hour period in the countryside in British Columbia
.

One possible form of a sound map, made during two different time periods on a “listening walk” around a city block. The different types of sounds are given graphic values according to whether they are soft, medium or loud, and tabulated to show the general activity and intensity. Using this method, it is simple to make comparisons of sound events historically or geographically
.

APPENDIX II

International Sound Preference Survey

Percentage of People Tested Liking or Disliking Sounds by Category