Sound intensity

Wagner’s The Ride of the Valkyries illustrates an overwhelming military force that triumphantly defeats its opponents in warfare. This image is brought about by the polyphonic texture from the wavering pitch of the string instruments, the booming intensity of brass and percussion instruments, and the stable rhythm of low and high pitches. The opening of the song presents a sense of urgency as a stack of three high pitches of a string instrument. A brass instrument sets the prideful tone of the…

The Role of Sound and Music in Medicine Touch, sight, taste, smell, and sound; these are the means in which we interact with the world. I ask the question; which one is more important? We have all been asked this before, but has it been given enough thought? Enough research and time? Obviously this is a loaded question, filled with more subjective thoughts and personal preferences than researchable facts. In any case; all the senses are instrumental in our perception of the world. The…

A sound is the oscillation of pressure in materials such as the atmosphere, water, or the earth. In spite of the fact that the domain for the pressure oscillations of sound is rather small, there is a significant difference in pressure between the weakest sound heard by a human being (such as the sound of the rustling of leaves), and the strongest sound heard by them (such as the launching of a missile, or an explosion). The size of such difference is measured by the range of the oscillations…

Before embarking on my soundwalk, I had a few basic expectations of sounds I would encounter, mostly based on prior memories of wandering MIT’s campus. I knew what the soft, low murmurs should sound like when traversing the corridors. I knew to expect the clip-clop of hard stepping walkers in the silent tunnels, and the high pitched buzzing and whining of electrical components overhead. Outside, the wind would make soft, mid pitched whuuu and shhh noises, which would serve as background for…

The speakers provide the music with a better sound quality. The place where the music is performed is designed for a small audience. Unlike concert halls where the auditorium is bigger its…

INTRODUCTION: The various competing sound present in our environment is being constantly untangled by our brain, and attributed into distinct perceptual streams analogous to the distinct sound sources in listeners’ environment (Bregman, 1990; Moore & Gockel, 2002; Carlyon, 2004). The process with which the nervous system makes sense of complex patterns of acoustic stimulation is called auditory scene analysis (Bregman, 1990). Thus, segregating the sounds arising from various sources in the…

Hearing is measured in decibels, which measures the intensity of sound. When measuring a person’s hearing ability, hearing loss is recorded when the person cannot hear a sound lower than twenty-six decibels. In comparison, profound hearing loss is described when a person cannot hear a sound lower than ninety-five decibels (Clason). According to the Hearing Loss Association of America, twenty percent of Americans, which translates into forty-eight million people have some degree of hearing loss…

of emitting sound and the interpreting and understanding of the echos which follow to determine an animal’s surroundings. This processed is used by different animals living in different environments but one of the most notable is the use of echolocation by toothed whales. Toothed Whales such as Dolphins and many types of Whales live under water and use echolocation for understanding of their surroundings, hunting and even social interactions.[1] This is done by the sending out of sounds (mainly…

When I was at the David Owsley Museum I was looking at art pieces that had more of a realistic feel. This piece caught my attention and then I listened to the audio and I really enjoyed the two pieces of art being placed together. There were three things that caught my attention with the music and then I noticed that things we discussed in art connected directly to the ideas from music. The first thing that was intriguing to me was the tone color. Next, the dynamic was interesting and related to…

For a piece that utilizes so many non-pitched sounds, Halim El-Dabh’s Leiyla and the Poet (1959) is a surprisingly melodic and structured piece. Two introductory motifs, one melodic, one rhythmic, are introduced at the beginning. The melodic element is shown in a whistle that follows a roughly duple pattern which is broken and reformed throughout the following minutes. Both the introduction and ending, it sets up the atmosphere and cues the listener’s attention to the different sections of the…