Organic Sounds

How often do we exercise the companionship of silence while at meetings? How well do we listen? Are children seriously taught listening skills in school? How much do we remember of conversions? Are we paying attention just long enough to find our own cue?

A good conversation shall require one to explore matter to the depth without destroying the surface. So much chatter however is like skating on ice-covering a surface, and never probing deeper. And the intrusions grow by the day-airplanes, cars, motor-bikes, power saws, lawn mowers….

Like man, some animals use sound signals to communicate. Crickets, frogs and birds are all able to make sounds to attract mates. Dolphins and other marine mammals signal to one another by making special sounds under water. Scientists have recorded many fascinating songs made by whales as they communicate over vast distances in the oceans.

Modernity has, however, a way of following man around. Besides the current influx in mobile telephony, the increasing easiness to come by television and radio sets blasts at the same time equates these things to the air we breathe, full of pollutants. How about strictly decamping one’s ear from the seemingly modern sounds, at least once in a while, to the ordinary sounds of everyday life-sweeping, singing, children playing, the organic sounds of nature like birds, even though they are getting harder to hear! To be true, we can’t have it both ways-modern conveniences, and peace, and quiet.

Sound is nothing more than vibrations in the air around us. Deep low-pitched sounds result from slow vibrations-100 to 500 vibrations per second. High pitched sounds are caused by faster vibrations-1000 to 5000 vibrations per second. In addition, to pitch, sounds differ from one another by their loudness, or volume. The sense organs that can distinguish both the pitch and loudness of sounds are the ears.

With exception of disease, the human ear is organic and no doubt should at most get exposure to such sounds as organic. In addition to enabling us to hear, the ears contain structures for detecting stimuli that make us aware of our movements and allow us to maintain our balance.