All this month on our series Sound Off we've been looking at Noise. We live with it, sometimes it feels like we live IN it, and it affects everything from the music we hear to the way we shop. But what if we literally could turn all the sound off?
To urban dwellers constantly bombarded by noise, it sounds like a dream come true. But what does that actually mean? Did you just think of a quiet room, a good book, glass of wine, cat on your lap? Or sitting under a tree in a bucolic rural setting, perhaps with rolling hills and a lake? Those images are quiet - but they're not silent.
Real silence can be quite disturbing. Our ears are constantly processing sound, and some acousticians think that humans maintain their equilibrium and balance in part by processing sounds that we don't actually hear, but feel, almost like reflections from the space we're in. A really well-soundproofed studio can be a disorienting place to be, until you get used to it. Everything sounds muffled, and for some people, it's almost like that woolly-headed feeling you get with a bad cold.
But you don't need to go to an anechoic chamber to experience the unsettling effect of being away from your usual sonic environment. For the past 15 years or so, I've rented the same summer house on the same lake in Saratoga county for our family vacation. We love it there - but still, it can be tough to get to sleep that first night or two. It's just too quiet. And when you realize there are noises, it's still unsettling because they're not the noises a city dweller is used to.
No, I'm not suggesting that quiet is bad. We all need some relief from the usual sights and sounds of our lives. I guess though that as a lifelong New Yorker I am accustomed to a certain threshhold of sound - a city version of the cosmic background hum that astrophysicists talk about. I like my moments of quiet. Then I like returning to the bustling energy that makes this city feel, and sound, like home.
Tell us: Where do you go to escape the noise? And do you eventually miss it (the noise, not the place you go to escape it)?
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John Schaefer has hosted Soundcheck since the show’s inception in 2002. He has also hosted and produced WNYC’s radio series New Sounds since 1982 (“The No. 1 radio show for the Global Village” – Billboard) and the New Sounds Live concert series since 1986.
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