Garret Keizer: "The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-06-30/garret-keizer-unwanted-sound-everything-we-want
Author Garret Keizer
Kathy Keizer
Noise and the human experience. Exploring sound through history and cultures. How noise can induce stress and disease in some, yet be considered beautiful music by others.
Guests
Garret Keizer
a freelance writer, contributing editor to “Harper’s" magazine and recent Guggenheim fellow. He is the author of six books, including “Help” and “The Enigma of Anger.”
Comments
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Bryony from Syracuse NY. Can you discuss your thoughts of sound and people who struggle with ADD and ADHD. I have ADD and sound realy does effect me and get me stressed. Where my husband does not seem to bothered by the same sounds. Thanks for your response.
I live in very small neighborhood where the sound of lawn mowers, leaf blowers and hedge clippers are unending during the summer...what happened to the use of manual tools, rakes and brooms? I must agree - I think it raises not only my blood pressure but also my pets. What can we do?
I am a professional musician who loves contemporary classical music, but I had always considered much of Cage's work beyond what I really enjoyed, that is, until I was able to hear a performance of Cage's 4'33. The audience sat very still and calm for the first 30 seconds or so, but gradually the silence in the recital hall began to heighten our hearing, until the noise of the hall and the rustling of the audience became the music. The "white" noise around us has a great deal of life and vitality, if we only take the time to listen.
Can you talk about white noise generators that are in offices? How/why did that come about? I am also a musician, and travel to a variety of office buildings around the world, and while I know the noise machines provide a use, i can often hear it and it can be distracting to me. Is that the case for others? thanks -
A caller mentioned the increased volume of sound effects in movies, and I believe Diane said TV commercials raise their volume to grab our attention. NPR is guilty of the same, in fact, I had to turn the volume of my radio down to focus in typing this during the current break.
I suggest people who have barking dogs ask neighbors how they feel about the sound and watch the neighbors' body language.
To the woman complaining about her neighbor using high frequency sounds to combat her barking dogs: Imagine how your neighbor feels, constantly being interrupted, woken up, harrassed by your dogs. Your dogs are an auditory invasion of her space. You love your dogs. Your neighbor does not.
I can't be in my own backyard without my neighbors dogs harrasing me from the other side of the fence. I can't take a nap in my own bedroom without dogs waking me.
Your were just talking about how the "background" music and sounds on TV shows is getting much louder and is drowning out the dialog. I strongly agree (and I thought it was just me). I've even stopped watching some shows because of this trend. I also agree that TV adverstising is louder than the shows (it always has been, although the advertisers deny it).
In this same regard, I'm afraid that public radio is somewhat guilty in that I find that the music played in between shows or at station breaks usually blasts out MUCH louder than the show just playing, causing me to grab for the volumn dial!
Regarding noise in restaurants: many restaurant owners deliberately create noisy environments (through architecture and lack of sound absorption devices) because they believe high levels of noise attracts people. I avoid those places.
I am curious about noise and religion. I grew up Quaker, practicing in a silent meeting for worship, and now I find loud music and noise in worship offensive.
I have a neighbor with a barking dog. Every time I go outside the dog barks--then she starts yelling at it and the noise goes on until I go back inside. I have lost the use of my backyard to the very loud noise my neighbor creates. I am considering using one of the dog frequency units. It is disturbing to hear that both DR and her guest sided with the woman with the barking dog instead of with the neighbor who is trying to recover some peace and quiet in her neighborhood.
Yappy dog owners need to be considerate of their neighbors.
When you complain about someone making too much noise, just be thankful you can have them turn their radio down, go someplace else, or in some other way mitigate the effects of the disturbance. Some of us suffer from tinnitus, and for us noise is inescapable; we carry the noise with us because it's inside our heads.
In reference to white noise generators, there is a difference between constant and changing sound. The most common "sound" I hear is a constant squeal, which I can generally ignore even when it's very loud. It interferes with conversation, listening to music (it can combine with the music to create some unpleasant dissonance), and similar activities but at least I can more or less shut it out. At other times I hear a sound exactly like a faucet that is on slightly. A whistling sort of sound that varies from moment to moment, just like the faucet sound that varies with the chaotic flow. That changing sound is much harder to ignore, like the animated ads on webpages intended to draw the viewers eye.
I think that may be the reason for the use of white noise generators. The noise is constant and patternless, like the sound of a fan, and if it masks the sort of noise that keeps drawing one's attention, it makes it easier to ignore.
A caller asked about certain children with disabilities who have more trouble processing when there is a lot of environmental noise.
Keizer wisely responded that we recognize the struggles of these children, but that they are merely "canaries in the mine", warning us that our so-called "unaffected" children likely are having similar (though less-apparent) problems as well.
As a geriatrician working to transform long-term care, this comment brought me immediately to our own "canaries" in the nursing home: people who live with dementia. Instead of seeing their distress as "behavior problems", we need to recognize that they are extraordinarily sensitive to an environment that is potentially harmful to all of us.
In the traditional nursing home, this is more than environmental noise (though that is an important problem). It is also due to what's missing: relationship, autonomy, meaningful engagement, physical comfort, love. How much do our elders without dementia--indeed, how much do all of us--suffer from this deprivation?
I would like to know if right-wing conservative Frederick Kagan is related to
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan?
Thank you,
Mary Shanahan
mary4956@comcast.net
I have long maintained a deep, passionate appreciaton for classical music. Since childhood (and I'm now in my seventies), I have attended concerts performed by some of the best symphony orchestras in the world, in Europe and in the U.S. I am appalled by a recent trend, in some of the concert halls in America, where audiences applaud between movements of a symphony or a concerto. I find the "inappropriate applause" most disturbing and much prefer the old rules of etiquette where the audiences withhold their applause and shouts until the work is completely finished. The classic rules of etiquette are still very much observed in Europe. And, perhaps so in some of the U.S. cities that have great orchestras (e.g., Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, etc).
I am wondering how other passionate lovers of classical music feel about this subject?