January 6, 2015 • 33 mins
Imagine exploring a cave and discovering paintings that appear to come alive with a few claps of your hand. Enter the cave of forgotten sounds with Robert and Julie and they spelunk their way through sonic illusions.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks
dot com. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to All your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and Julie Douglas. And in
this episode we're talking about sound, which is which is
good because this podcast is is sonic by its very nature.
(00:25):
That's right. It is a sound that is traveling into
your holes and hopefully it's pleasant. But we wanted to
talk about sound more as an aspect of art and
spirituality and and and even a sound escape that exists
within nature and the ways in which humans have um
interacted with us. Yeah, it's a it's a fascinating topic
(00:48):
and a lot of it really just gets down to
the heart of how do we interact with our world? Uh,
what is our sense experience of the world, and what
is our our our listening ex into the world. How
do we take in the soundscape around us? How do
we deal with artificial soundscapes. We live in a world
of just over overpowering access to soundscapes. You can go
(01:11):
online and you can find just about anything in the
natural or unnatural world to listen to and stream it
right into your head. Well, and then there's just environmental
sounds around us, um and you had mentioned this earlier.
We really take for granted the fact that we can
manipulate sound around us so easily. Oh yeah, And I
mean any given structure, any kind of artificial creation that
(01:33):
we've made, or any manipulation of a natural environment, and
you know, we're adjusting the way that we hear the world.
You grow some hedges, great, you've you've just recreated the
sonic experience of your environment. You build a house, same thing,
you build a cathedral, same thing. Yeah, these are more
like analog examples of the sort of technology that we
(01:53):
have at our disposal today. But what if you were
ancient man, ancient human in back in the day and
you had only the your surroundings to really play with sound,
and you have some instruments, okay, but you had your
hands to clap with, and you had things to bounce
that sound off of. And that's where something like caves
(02:17):
become incredibly interesting. Yes, yeah, I mean especially and we
were just talking about how the environment outside of our
office space is essentially an artificial canyon, and then there's
an artificial river of roaring traffic and all of this
this stuff, and it's it's just easy to to to
take all of it for granted, and just to to
overlook the manipulation of sound that's going on. Yeah, but
(02:39):
imagine yourself in a time where you have just this
this natural landscape and the soundscape that exists on top
of it, and then you encounter this cave. What happens
when you encounter this cave, assuming nothing jumps out of
it and eats you. I mean, just the censory of
experience of a cave is overwhelming. I mean, we I
feel like today we will realize that in terms of
(03:02):
our site, in terms of of the the tightness of
the space. I mean, it's still the stuff of horror
movie and uh yeah, but but but just think about
it also from the point of view of sound. Now,
this is something that really arrested the imagination of Esther
ingle Arcle writing for I oh nine, And she talks
(03:24):
about the novel A Passage to India by Ian Forster.
And in this novel there's something called the Malabar Caves,
and she says they're deep, and they're complicated, and any
noise made inside of them, from the scrape of a
match to the squeak of a boot heel, comes back
as thunderous noise, the sound of the caves drive two
(03:46):
British women temporarily mad. And this, this whole idea really
captured her imagination. And so she says, to her internal disappointment, Um,
these caves, which are based on the b of our caves,
do not have the power to drive people into altered
states of mind with sound. But she says, hey does
(04:06):
turn out that there are actually some caves around the
world that do. And before you think, oh, well, that's
just some sort of crazy fictional creation, though I mean
it did serve a literary point. She points us out
in her article that uh, it's it's really about the
the the coming revolution in India, the gap between the
understanding of uh, the Indians and the British. So it's
(04:28):
it works. It's not just the forester making stuff up
and putting it in the book. No, it's a nice
narrative technique to talk about the unknown. But but then
if you actually set off to find that cave, you
would be somewhe disappoint You would be very disappointed. But
if you are an archo acoustic researcher, you probably would
know of several caves. But in order to get to
(04:49):
those caves, we have to talk about what archo acoustics
is in the first place. Yes, on a very simple level,
this is just the study of sound in an archaeological context.
Um is simple as is, here's an archaeological site. We
put a lot of effort into what does it look like,
what did it look like back in the day, reconstructing it,
reading any signs and symbols on it, and figuring out
(05:10):
what what things were meant to symbolize. But then when
you get into archaeo acoustics, it's also how did this
place sound? What was the sound experience of this space?
And when you start talking about the sound experience of
of of a space, I realized that can sound a
little bit new ag and hippie dippy, And just try
and eject that from your mind as much as possible, because, again,
(05:32):
just to bore it down, the sound experience of a
space is vital. Sound is an important sensory experience and
I think it's it's obvious that it would be if
if not the primary driving factor in the creation of
of of these ancient sites. It certainly is a factor
in the experience of those sites. Yeah, so it definitely
is a relationship of the sensory world and the human
(05:54):
and that monument or that natural um area in which
the person is sitting in. But they also measure the
acoustic parameters of a place by use of electronic instrumentations,
So they are trying to figure out the physics of
sound here and how it's playing out. Now, some would
take issue with the field of argo acoustics. Yeah, I mean,
(06:17):
when you really get down to it, there's not a
lot of science to back it up. A lot of
this and not to say there there have there have
not been studies and they're there are not some some
fascinating findings, and we'll get into some of that, but
at heart, a lot of it breaks down to us
trying to put ourselves in the mindset and in the
sense experience of increasingly early humans. Um. And when we're
(06:41):
also when we're talking about the sounds that an environment makes,
that an official environment makes, or even an augmented one
such as a decorated cave, we're talking about percussion, We're
talking about the ringing of rocks, We're talking about echoes,
and we're even talking about wind water and heat expansion sounds. Uh,
any kind of sounds that consider a part of that environment.
(07:03):
But yeah, as I believe us researcher Stephen Waller points out, um,
and he's one of the primary researchers we're gonna talk
about here. UM, A lot of this is about considering
the physiological and mental effects of sound and how we
use and have used, and continue to use ritual to
generate altered mind states and aids visuary experience. And again,
(07:24):
today we have access to all of these soundscapes, artificial
and uh and natural. We have all you know, you
can put in any kind of ambient or high energy
album to to augment your headspace, but in earlier times
that wasn't an option. Yeah, and I think the main
issue with our cho acoustics is again, uh, the interpretations.
So yeah, you can hear various soundscapes in nature in
(07:48):
a cave, for instance, and there may be some symbolism
to accompany it. But I think that the um that
the thing that's being levied against arco acoustics is that
we are tern recognition machines. So just because we see
a correlation here doesn't necessarily mean that there is a causation.
In other words, that people were um manipulating sound intentionally
(08:12):
in these spaces for ceremonial purposes. For instance, now esther
Angle Arcis writes, although the idea is not proved or
even provable, I do like it. It indicates there is
a gulf between two mindsets, not separated by geographical distance,
but by time. Two people standing in the same spot
and experiencing the same phenomenon will perceive them completely differently.
(08:35):
For one person the experience is a hallucinatory moment bringing
together sound, vision, and religion, while the other will just
see some pictures without taking note of anything else. Yeah,
that that's well put. And it it reminds me of
Jerusalem Syndrome a bit which we've we've discussed in our
Standall Syndrome episode about the impact of art and and
(08:56):
also historical sites on the person and so much it
is subjective what information you're bringing into it, with your
own personal history, your mythological or religious interpretation of the world,
um and and certainly a lot of that is is
at play here. Yeah, And so it kind of boils
down to this. In archao acoustics, it could very well
(09:17):
be that there just happened to be a soundscape that
worked really well with symbolism. In ceremony, or it could
be that, uh, the culture at that time really was
trying to manipulate those areas and have it work with
their mindsets of how the world worked. So we're never
going to get to a definitive answer here. It definitely
(09:38):
is that the chicken or the egg argument. Yeah, and
I can see where it's a hard sell for someone
to to to at least interpret some of this, uh,
this effort as oh, well, they're saying that Stonehenge or
um you know, or or or this cave or that
cave exists primarily as an historic site because it changed
the way people heard sounds. Um. I can see where
(09:59):
that would be difficult. I would be like saying, well,
stone Hinge exists because people like the way it tasted.
You know, it's it. We're so we have such a
visual mindset anyway. But but when you create a what
is it ultimately a sacred site? I feel like any
way that that site augments your sensory experience would be
important to the people who made it and important to
(10:20):
study as well. Yeah. Yeah, And and again artificial buildings, uh,
artificial constructions, they change the environment. They change the micro environment.
As we've discussed in the previous podcasts, but also just
as in terms of sound, you walk into a cathedral,
you walk into a um, into into a Greek amphitheater, Uh,
the sound changes. Your sound experience of this space is
(10:42):
different than it would be had at an unaugmented portion
of the Earth. Well, and one thing too that I
didn't mention is that one of the criticisms love it
against archaeo acoustics is this bias that early humans were
not sophisticated enough to really understand that so sound sound
could be manipulated. So you could say, oh, yes, in
(11:02):
a Greek amphitheater, that's totally intentional, right, that someone might
take issue with it in a cave, Yeah, so that's
something to consider. Yeah, but but but then it also
kind of comes down to someone saying, well, early man
couldn't possibly appreciate the fact that the cave is changing
the way it sounds come out like that's that's ludicrous.
So so you know they're like, there're two sides. Indeed,
(11:24):
all right, let's take a quick break and when we
get back, we're going to talk about spread Pallory. All right,
we're back and we're headed to China. Yes, an ancient
Mayan sight with a ball court, which sounds really sporty
(11:45):
of them. Right. You sound like you're you're showing real
estate right now. I know, and I feel like it's
property too. And look, this is wellcore where there were
their wide outfits and play tennis. But in fact that
is not at all with this ball court was about No, no,
this uh, this whole site thousand years old and u
uh you have a quarter of this as you have
(12:06):
the pyramid, the kind of ziggarati ish Mayan pyramid that
I'll try to include a picture of this with the
landing page for this episode because you really have to
look at it to get into everything that we're talking
about here. But uh, you have this pyramid, you have
this ball court, and indeed they're not playing basketball here.
This is a life and death game that is that
(12:28):
is occurring. Yeah, just let's foreground this and the fact
that the Mayans were really big on sacrifice, and we
think of sacrifice as this terrible cultural thing, but if
you happen to live um during that time in the
mind culture, then it would be um, you would have
very high statue if you were someone who were who
(12:49):
was going to be sacrificed, your family would be held
in high esteem. So the culture was revolved around this idea.
And so you have a ball court, which sounds like
a sporty thing, but in fact it's this this field
where the drama of life is being played out. And
it was first excavated in nineteen twenty by archaeologist Sylvani's Morley.
(13:12):
Um it's five hundred and forty one ft long and
two hundred and forty feet wide, and it is the
largest in Mesoamerica, with walls on two sides and small
temples at either end. And I also, I just want
to throw in that if anyone say, looking at this,
you knowit brutal sport, it's uh. I mean ultimately all
sports are just mock wars anyway, and maybe this is
(13:33):
just a little more honest sport. Yeah. The idea behind
this that I've seen is that, um, again, it's a
life and death game that was played in the person
who won, who actually offered his head to be executed. Again,
this is because uh, in this mindset, you know, it
would be a great honor to to sacrifice yourself. So UM,
(13:56):
keep that in mind, because I want to go back
to the structure of this, the temples actually formed a
whispering gallery. The amplified sounds spoken within them, and you
can stand in this temple or by the temple side. Again,
you've got two walls on either side and then temples
on either side, and you can speak in a low
(14:18):
voice and you can be heard distinctly at the end
of the court five hundred feet away. And the idea,
at least according to David Loveman, who is one of
the researchers probing the acoustic properties of ancient sites, is
that um, the minds could create other sounds, not just whispering.
They could do a whooping bird flying from right to left,
(14:40):
and he said that the priests could also make sounds
that sounded like fierce animals like rattlesnakes and jaguars. Again,
this is spectacle, this is life and death, and it
would make sense that these whispering galleries would help to
sort of ratchet up the suspense. Yeah, and it's also
worth noting here just to really get down to what
(15:00):
the minds were doing with their buildings and how they
were manipulating perception. The pyramid temple um with its again,
with its step like sides. If you're viewing this um
and you're in you're viewing it in the starting in
the spring equinox uh time, when the day and night
are at equal lengths. You'll you can see a shadow
glide down the temple steps and over several days transform
(15:22):
into different shapes as it moves across the courtyard. And
most scholars believe that this, uh, this shadow represents the
feathered Mayan god called Culkin. So if they're manipulating shadow
and light, I don't think it's any great stretch to
imagine the manipulating sound as well. Yeah. And the fact
of the matter is too, is that this is all
sort of one big ceremonial celestial marker wrapped up in one,
(15:48):
as you say, with sound with light, And it would
make sense that this is probably one of the most
important areas in which life is playing out in Mayan culture. Yeah,
I mean, in a this is the center of their universe,
you know, it's the center of their culture. Uh. And
they have all of their their mythology wrapped up in
it and around it. So yeah, Now you can find
(16:09):
whispering galleries throughout the world. Grand Central Station in New
York is one an unintentional one. I believe, you know,
the arches help to create this sonic illusion. You can
whisper in one area and be heard another. Um, let
me see the Saint Paul's Cathedral in London and the
statuary hall in the US Capitol Building. And apparently when
(16:30):
I was doing this research, this is a sort of
a unique way for someone to propose marriage. Yeah, there
you go, using the sacred aspects of the site. However
unintentional too, to take part of a sacred ritual. Yeah,
it's kind of, you know, a romantic notion to know
that you're you're ask for marriage. I suppose is traveling
(16:55):
along in this very intimate way cross base in times
who beloved's ear? All right, Now we're gonna travel to uh,
far different structure, sure, in fact, a natural structure, and
that's the Liscow Caves. Uh. And these are of course
located in France. You'll recognize the pictures, uh, ancient ancient
(17:16):
illustrations of animals on the wall. Uh, you know, very
stereotypical cave paintings. Um. So really a John back in time,
far beyond the mirror a thousand years ago of the
mine example we were discussing, Yeah, Warner Harzog actually documented
them in his film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and in
it you see herds of rocks, bulls, and horses depicted
(17:41):
running along the walls. There's a sense of motion, and
that is important in terms of archaeo acoustics. Stephen Waller
of the research lab Rock Art Acoustics believes that the
echoes of ritual clapping outside the cave would have sounded
like hundreds of hoofs drumming on the ground. Own go, yeah,
(18:03):
He said that. He also points out that many different
ancient ancient cultures attributed thunder in the sky to hoofed
thunder gods. So in that sense, it makes perfect sense
that the reverberation within the caves would be interpreted as
thunder and inspired paintings of those same different hoofed entities
right there on the cave wall. Yeah. And what's really
(18:24):
cool about this is that it enhances the experience. Now
you're painting with sounds, right, You're not just depicting life,
You're you're using the acoustics to really ramp up the experience,
and especially if you're looking at it in a ceremonial sense.
And we've talked about how the rhythmic clapping is really
important in cultures. First of all, it's something that uh,
(18:46):
that will coordinate the synapsis for everybody, right, so that's
where the group inclusion thing to clap. The Second of all,
it's something that is um intrinsic to ceremonies. So if
you're trying to get everybody together and dance and song
and to tell stories, then clapping is really important. Everyone's
looping up signaps is firing at the same time, getting
(19:08):
in the same head zone. You know. In this I
can't help but be reminded of contemporary artists and in
a niche Kapoor, because all these you know, wonderful, often
a large scale sculptures, but there's a mirror piece, a
concave mirror at the High Museum or in Atlanta, and
you stand before it and you move around in front
of it, and of course the mirrors alter how you
(19:28):
appear and those around you appear. But it also plays
with sound and you can you can have one person
stand a little closer and a little person uh stand
a little further back from it, and uh it alters
the way you hear each other. So the idea of
creating art and sound visual art and sonic art all
wrapped up into one has been with us for a
long time, it would see. Yeah, especially if you consider
(19:50):
symbolic thought, and uh this this was actually brought to
light pretty recently that Homo sapiens are not the only
one ones who are capable of symbolic thought, and researchers
this year discovered as shell engraved with a geometric pattern
at h erectus site known as Tranil on the Indonesian
(20:12):
island of Java, and that dates to between five four
hundred thirty thousand years ago. I bring this up because
it becomes an important aspect of how we order the world. Okay,
we need symbols, symbols or the basis of language. So
if you have cave art, if you have sound acoustics
(20:33):
interplaying with that, then you also have this ability to
kind of take hold of abstract thought and actually change
behavior based on symbolism. And some would even argue that
symbolic thought has ushered in morality or codes of living.
So that's why I think it's so important for all
this stuff to be considered as being wrapped up as
(20:54):
sort of one thing and not necessarily teased out as
its own. Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing ancient Aliens about this idea.
I mean it gets right down to the heart of
what humans are and what has allowed humans and considerably
could have allowed Neanderthal or Homorectus to ascend to the
heights that they have indeed, which would bring us to Stonehenge,
(21:17):
because there couldn't be, you know, anything more enigmatic wrapped
up in a mystery and then pierced with a tiny
plastic sword of confusion. Yeah, I think Stonehenge is that
what we did in our two episodes. Did we pierce
it with the tiny sort of confusion? So many swords
of confusion? Yeah, And I think that speaks to how
complex it is. Yeah. Yeah, I mean Stonehenge really resonates
(21:40):
with everyone because it is this, this amazing site that
clearly has a lot of thought involved in it, a
lot of mental construction and symbolism, and we are often
at pains to really understand what it meant from modern perspective.
A lot of great work has gone into it, and
we have a lot of great, great answers now to
what went into it at different phases, and some of
(22:03):
the ideas out there do evolve around the way Stonehenge
sounded as well as looked. Yeah, and um, as we
had discussed before, this Stonehenge is something that has been
in the works for hundreds and hundreds of years. So
think about all those people, all those generations adding to it, um,
adding symbolic layers to it as well, and you get
to the soundscape of it, and that becomes a very
(22:25):
interesting aspect of it as well. Waller in the October
edition of Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, and
Waller at the time was acting as independent scholar, he
details how the shape of Stonehenge mimics the patterns of
positive and negative interference produced by two sources of sound,
(22:47):
an auditory illusion that may have been imbued with something
that's in like otherworldly significance by a culture that didn't
necessarily understand the physics of the phenomenon, but sort of
understood that there was something happening. Yeah. He says that
the Stonehenge might have worked as kind of a giant
sound wave interference filter. And and the interference here occurs
(23:08):
when when these we have two instruments that would would
play at the sing at the same time the same note,
each creates sound waves that have alternating high and low
pressure segments, so when the high and low pressure segments collide,
they cancel each other out. Now, Waller asked blindfolded participants
to do this, to basically move around in a circle
(23:29):
with two pipers playing notes in the field. I wonder
if this is expressed on the call out for study participants. Hey,
we were doing a scientific study. We need you to
walk around blindfolded in Stonehenge while people play pipes. I
know it sounds like the plot for like this is
final top part too, you know. Yeah, I'm thinking yeah,
that or or the wicker Man or something. It doesn't
(23:49):
sound like it's going to end. Well, no it doesn't.
But but they were asked to do this, and uh
they they were the listeners who were taken through spaces
where the sound is amplified space just where the sound
waves collide out of phase and our muted so loud quiet,
loud quiet, and so on and so on. So they
did this, and he reported that, um, the same sort
(24:12):
of auditory effect was happening here when he compared it
to Stonehenge and the piper stones. Um, and also what
would have been in place, because remember Stonehenge right now
is not complete. It's just sort of um a shell
of itself. Indeed, Stonehenges that stands today is incomplete. So
if you were if you're going to study the acoustics
(24:34):
of stone Hinge, sometimes you have to actually work with
fake stone hinges as well, as we'll see in the
study of Dr Bruna Facinda of the University of Salford
in the UK. UH. This guy like like Waller studying
the acoustics of Stonehenge. But since the original stone Hinge
isn't complete, some of the stones are toppled uh and
(24:56):
also didn't have access to electric generators that would be
needed run the equipment. They turned to the World War
One Memorial of Stonehenge replica in Maryhill Museum in Washington
State here in the United States, which which is interesting
to think of studying this this ancient location by by
by using this as well as a World War One memorial. Um,
(25:18):
I'm glad they could use car Hinge. Journey of the
other generations that would change. Yeah. And didn't they pop balloons?
I believe I believe so. Yeah. Um, And the reason
is because they couldn't bring in electricity, so they're trying
to just do some some auditory noises that they could
then determine the k rate of energy and figure out
(25:38):
the energy time curves at measured positions. Now, the studies
conclusion is that Stonehenge was a reflective environment and which
any sound is made to reverberate due to the flat
heart services. So we're talking about a one second reverberation time. Yeah,
and that would certainly be enough to be noticeable by
anybody that's entering into the circle. Uh. And it's it's
(26:00):
also an optimal reverberation time for large lecture halls, ensuring
that a good speech is interpreted intelligibly by those in
the vicinity. Right. So you know, again we are not
exactly certain how it was used, why it was used,
but it's very obvious that there was that that time
(26:21):
will apps and sound, and that the person entering that
space might have experienced whatever it was, ceremonial or otherwise
at an elevated level, an altered state, given all the
other data and stimuli and meaning surrounding it. Indeed, um,
(26:41):
now you pointed out the flat hard surfaces, and uh,
it takes me back. I believe it was was Waller
who pointed out that at times they could actually find
art in caves by clapping and hearing where the reverberations. Right, yeah,
and so you end up getting into that sort of
chicken and egg, right did they? Did they paint uh? This, uh? This,
(27:02):
this horned beast on this on this hard flat surface
because it's easier to paint things on a hard flat surface,
and it's kind of the standard. Or was it because
of the reverberation the sonic residence of that particular spot.
It's hard to say. Kurt Hopkins, writing for Arts Technical says, scientists,
whether acoustic scientists or archaeologists, are for good reason reticent
(27:26):
to draw conclusions that are not based on provable, duplicable facts.
But at least we can do this picture. What's such
a structure with such an acoustical profile would have meant
experientially to visitors? The human imagination values form the circular
form of Stonehenge and the relationship of points therein must
have been lent in otherworldly dynamic by the special character
(27:50):
of its sound. Indeed, and again, I think so much
of that is is so easy to overlook in our
modern environment, where we're just surrounded by by environments that
are artificial and eight ultimately artificial sound experiences. And then
you know every album or SoundCloud file that we've ever
pumped into our head to augment our experience of reality
(28:12):
or even to augment our experience of another artificial reality.
I mean, that's how crazy our modern experiences. We're listening
to artificial soundscapes while we plug our head into a book,
or or playing or playing a video game, or maybe
we're watching a separate film. All of this is going on. Uh,
it's easy to lose track of what artificial sound and
(28:33):
artificial stimuli would have meant to early people. Well, and
I was even thinking about what it means to us
now and how important it is. And we plumed this
a little bit in our episode on time and perception
and music and how we can so easily alter it,
and we try to do that. We try to alter
our day to day experience and find some meaning it
(28:55):
through art through music. So it would make sense that
if you were devoid of of the music that we
know today, that this would become exponentially important in your
world as an early human indeed now And in closing,
we wanna, we wanna lead out here with a great
example of almost modern archaeo acoustics, if that makes sense,
(29:18):
kind of a modern take on some of these presumed
ancient practices of utilizing the natural acoustic properties of caves.
I'm talking about the Great stalac pipe organ Um, and
you'll find this in Larie Caverns of Virginia. This h
what what we're talking about here is arguably the largest
(29:40):
musical instrument in the world because instead of using pipes,
this organ is wired to us little soft rubber mallets
that gently strikes stalagtites of varying lengths and thickness. So
it looks like when when you look up a picture
of this, it looks like something that the Phantom of
the Opera or Vincent Prices is Dr fives would play
(30:02):
because it's in a cave. And here's this this sort
of old time like you know, nineteen fifties organ um.
You play the keys, little mount strike the stalactites, but
to achieve the kind of precise musical scale you need
to actually play the organ. The chosen stalactites, uh cover
a range of over three point five acres. But since
(30:23):
you're in this enclosed cave environment, you can hear the
music throughout. Yeah, this organ was invented and built in
nineteen fifty four by Leland Sprinkle, a mathematician and electronics scientists,
and it took him over three years to complete it. Uh,
we're talking about looking at each of these stalactites and
trying to figure out their thickness and how much they're
(30:45):
going to conduct sound, and then wiring up over five
miles of these chosen stalactites to create this network for
the organ. It's crazy. I mean, i'm, i'm. In recent years,
I've i've I've gotten big on the idea that you know,
caven vironments are special and we shouldn't mess with them
too much. But if you're going to mess with the
game environment, I guess turn it into an amazing pipe organ.
(31:08):
Um Sprinkle And this was interesting too. I was reading this,
of all places, on DJ Foods blog, his far fabulous
blog about music and comics and pop culture stuff, but
he mentioned that Sprinkle got the idea for this after
his son banged his head on a stalag type and
it rung with a quote pleasant sound. I love it.
(31:31):
I love people like Leland Sprinkle. He's like, and now
I can create the world's largest instrument underground US. Yeah,
and it's uh appparently the used to you could buy
vinyl records of music uh that that that was produced
using this pipe organ. And in two thousand and eleven,
(31:51):
the Finnish Swedish music collective Peppe de Lux actually became
the first artist who write and record an original composition
on the Great Stalac pipe organ. Uh. And you can
find that out the name of the find that out there.
The name of the album is a Queen of the
Wave and uh. And also you can just look up
DJ Foods post about it. I believe he has an
embedded SoundCloud. I'll be sure to link to that, as
(32:13):
well as some other of the interesting articles we've discussed
here in the landing page for this podcast episode. All Right,
what do you guys think, um, when it comes to
our chao acoustics? Is this just the old pattern recognition
of the mind or is this intentional ritualized landscapes? Yeah?
Or is it you know, is somewhere in between. We'd
(32:35):
love to hear from everybody. Uh. It's certainly an issue
that that people seem to have strong opinions about. Um,
where are you gonna find us? Well, you're gonna find
us stuff to blow your mind dot com. That's our
our website. That's our mother page. That's where you'll find
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links out to our various social media accounts. And if
you would like to send us a missive please do
(32:56):
we like to hear from you guys a lot? You
can send us an email at blow the Mind at
how staff works dot com. For more illness and thousands
of other topics, visit how staff works dot com
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks
dot com. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to All your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and Julie Douglas. And in
this episode we're talking about sound, which is which is
good because this podcast is is sonic by its very nature.
(00:25):
That's right. It is a sound that is traveling into
your holes and hopefully it's pleasant. But we wanted to
talk about sound more as an aspect of art and
spirituality and and and even a sound escape that exists
within nature and the ways in which humans have um
interacted with us. Yeah, it's a it's a fascinating topic
(00:48):
and a lot of it really just gets down to
the heart of how do we interact with our world? Uh,
what is our sense experience of the world, and what
is our our our listening ex into the world. How
do we take in the soundscape around us? How do
we deal with artificial soundscapes. We live in a world
of just over overpowering access to soundscapes. You can go
(01:11):
online and you can find just about anything in the
natural or unnatural world to listen to and stream it
right into your head. Well, and then there's just environmental
sounds around us, um and you had mentioned this earlier.
We really take for granted the fact that we can
manipulate sound around us so easily. Oh yeah, And I
mean any given structure, any kind of artificial creation that
(01:33):
we've made, or any manipulation of a natural environment, and
you know, we're adjusting the way that we hear the world.
You grow some hedges, great, you've you've just recreated the
sonic experience of your environment. You build a house, same thing,
you build a cathedral, same thing. Yeah, these are more
like analog examples of the sort of technology that we
(01:53):
have at our disposal today. But what if you were
ancient man, ancient human in back in the day and
you had only the your surroundings to really play with sound,
and you have some instruments, okay, but you had your
hands to clap with, and you had things to bounce
that sound off of. And that's where something like caves
(02:17):
become incredibly interesting. Yes, yeah, I mean especially and we
were just talking about how the environment outside of our
office space is essentially an artificial canyon, and then there's
an artificial river of roaring traffic and all of this
this stuff, and it's it's just easy to to to
take all of it for granted, and just to to
overlook the manipulation of sound that's going on. Yeah, but
(02:39):
imagine yourself in a time where you have just this
this natural landscape and the soundscape that exists on top
of it, and then you encounter this cave. What happens
when you encounter this cave, assuming nothing jumps out of
it and eats you. I mean, just the censory of
experience of a cave is overwhelming. I mean, we I
feel like today we will realize that in terms of
(03:02):
our site, in terms of of the the tightness of
the space. I mean, it's still the stuff of horror
movie and uh yeah, but but but just think about
it also from the point of view of sound. Now,
this is something that really arrested the imagination of Esther
ingle Arcle writing for I oh nine, And she talks
(03:24):
about the novel A Passage to India by Ian Forster.
And in this novel there's something called the Malabar Caves,
and she says they're deep, and they're complicated, and any
noise made inside of them, from the scrape of a
match to the squeak of a boot heel, comes back
as thunderous noise, the sound of the caves drive two
(03:46):
British women temporarily mad. And this, this whole idea really
captured her imagination. And so she says, to her internal disappointment, Um,
these caves, which are based on the b of our caves,
do not have the power to drive people into altered
states of mind with sound. But she says, hey does
(04:06):
turn out that there are actually some caves around the
world that do. And before you think, oh, well, that's
just some sort of crazy fictional creation, though I mean
it did serve a literary point. She points us out
in her article that uh, it's it's really about the
the the coming revolution in India, the gap between the
understanding of uh, the Indians and the British. So it's
(04:28):
it works. It's not just the forester making stuff up
and putting it in the book. No, it's a nice
narrative technique to talk about the unknown. But but then
if you actually set off to find that cave, you
would be somewhe disappoint You would be very disappointed. But
if you are an archo acoustic researcher, you probably would
know of several caves. But in order to get to
(04:49):
those caves, we have to talk about what archo acoustics
is in the first place. Yes, on a very simple level,
this is just the study of sound in an archaeological context.
Um is simple as is, here's an archaeological site. We
put a lot of effort into what does it look like,
what did it look like back in the day, reconstructing it,
reading any signs and symbols on it, and figuring out
(05:10):
what what things were meant to symbolize. But then when
you get into archaeo acoustics, it's also how did this
place sound? What was the sound experience of this space?
And when you start talking about the sound experience of
of of a space, I realized that can sound a
little bit new ag and hippie dippy, And just try
and eject that from your mind as much as possible, because, again,
(05:32):
just to bore it down, the sound experience of a
space is vital. Sound is an important sensory experience and
I think it's it's obvious that it would be if
if not the primary driving factor in the creation of
of of these ancient sites. It certainly is a factor
in the experience of those sites. Yeah, so it definitely
is a relationship of the sensory world and the human
(05:54):
and that monument or that natural um area in which
the person is sitting in. But they also measure the
acoustic parameters of a place by use of electronic instrumentations,
So they are trying to figure out the physics of
sound here and how it's playing out. Now, some would
take issue with the field of argo acoustics. Yeah, I mean,
(06:17):
when you really get down to it, there's not a
lot of science to back it up. A lot of
this and not to say there there have there have
not been studies and they're there are not some some
fascinating findings, and we'll get into some of that, but
at heart, a lot of it breaks down to us
trying to put ourselves in the mindset and in the
sense experience of increasingly early humans. Um. And when we're
(06:41):
also when we're talking about the sounds that an environment makes,
that an official environment makes, or even an augmented one
such as a decorated cave, we're talking about percussion, We're
talking about the ringing of rocks, We're talking about echoes,
and we're even talking about wind water and heat expansion sounds. Uh,
any kind of sounds that consider a part of that environment.
(07:03):
But yeah, as I believe us researcher Stephen Waller points out, um,
and he's one of the primary researchers we're gonna talk
about here. UM, A lot of this is about considering
the physiological and mental effects of sound and how we
use and have used, and continue to use ritual to
generate altered mind states and aids visuary experience. And again,
(07:24):
today we have access to all of these soundscapes, artificial
and uh and natural. We have all you know, you
can put in any kind of ambient or high energy
album to to augment your headspace, but in earlier times
that wasn't an option. Yeah, and I think the main
issue with our cho acoustics is again, uh, the interpretations.
So yeah, you can hear various soundscapes in nature in
(07:48):
a cave, for instance, and there may be some symbolism
to accompany it. But I think that the um that
the thing that's being levied against arco acoustics is that
we are tern recognition machines. So just because we see
a correlation here doesn't necessarily mean that there is a causation.
In other words, that people were um manipulating sound intentionally
(08:12):
in these spaces for ceremonial purposes. For instance, now esther
Angle Arcis writes, although the idea is not proved or
even provable, I do like it. It indicates there is
a gulf between two mindsets, not separated by geographical distance,
but by time. Two people standing in the same spot
and experiencing the same phenomenon will perceive them completely differently.
(08:35):
For one person the experience is a hallucinatory moment bringing
together sound, vision, and religion, while the other will just
see some pictures without taking note of anything else. Yeah,
that that's well put. And it it reminds me of
Jerusalem Syndrome a bit which we've we've discussed in our
Standall Syndrome episode about the impact of art and and
(08:56):
also historical sites on the person and so much it
is subjective what information you're bringing into it, with your
own personal history, your mythological or religious interpretation of the world,
um and and certainly a lot of that is is
at play here. Yeah, And so it kind of boils
down to this. In archao acoustics, it could very well
(09:17):
be that there just happened to be a soundscape that
worked really well with symbolism. In ceremony, or it could
be that, uh, the culture at that time really was
trying to manipulate those areas and have it work with
their mindsets of how the world worked. So we're never
going to get to a definitive answer here. It definitely
(09:38):
is that the chicken or the egg argument. Yeah, and
I can see where it's a hard sell for someone
to to to at least interpret some of this, uh,
this effort as oh, well, they're saying that Stonehenge or
um you know, or or or this cave or that
cave exists primarily as an historic site because it changed
the way people heard sounds. Um. I can see where
(09:59):
that would be difficult. I would be like saying, well,
stone Hinge exists because people like the way it tasted.
You know, it's it. We're so we have such a
visual mindset anyway. But but when you create a what
is it ultimately a sacred site? I feel like any
way that that site augments your sensory experience would be
important to the people who made it and important to
(10:20):
study as well. Yeah. Yeah, And and again artificial buildings, uh,
artificial constructions, they change the environment. They change the micro environment.
As we've discussed in the previous podcasts, but also just
as in terms of sound, you walk into a cathedral,
you walk into a um, into into a Greek amphitheater, Uh,
the sound changes. Your sound experience of this space is
(10:42):
different than it would be had at an unaugmented portion
of the Earth. Well, and one thing too that I
didn't mention is that one of the criticisms love it
against archaeo acoustics is this bias that early humans were
not sophisticated enough to really understand that so sound sound
could be manipulated. So you could say, oh, yes, in
(11:02):
a Greek amphitheater, that's totally intentional, right, that someone might
take issue with it in a cave, Yeah, so that's
something to consider. Yeah, but but but then it also
kind of comes down to someone saying, well, early man
couldn't possibly appreciate the fact that the cave is changing
the way it sounds come out like that's that's ludicrous.
So so you know they're like, there're two sides. Indeed,
(11:24):
all right, let's take a quick break and when we
get back, we're going to talk about spread Pallory. All right,
we're back and we're headed to China. Yes, an ancient
Mayan sight with a ball court, which sounds really sporty
(11:45):
of them. Right. You sound like you're you're showing real
estate right now. I know, and I feel like it's
property too. And look, this is wellcore where there were
their wide outfits and play tennis. But in fact that
is not at all with this ball court was about No, no,
this uh, this whole site thousand years old and u
uh you have a quarter of this as you have
(12:06):
the pyramid, the kind of ziggarati ish Mayan pyramid that
I'll try to include a picture of this with the
landing page for this episode because you really have to
look at it to get into everything that we're talking
about here. But uh, you have this pyramid, you have
this ball court, and indeed they're not playing basketball here.
This is a life and death game that is that
(12:28):
is occurring. Yeah, just let's foreground this and the fact
that the Mayans were really big on sacrifice, and we
think of sacrifice as this terrible cultural thing, but if
you happen to live um during that time in the
mind culture, then it would be um, you would have
very high statue if you were someone who were who
(12:49):
was going to be sacrificed, your family would be held
in high esteem. So the culture was revolved around this idea.
And so you have a ball court, which sounds like
a sporty thing, but in fact it's this this field
where the drama of life is being played out. And
it was first excavated in nineteen twenty by archaeologist Sylvani's Morley.
(13:12):
Um it's five hundred and forty one ft long and
two hundred and forty feet wide, and it is the
largest in Mesoamerica, with walls on two sides and small
temples at either end. And I also, I just want
to throw in that if anyone say, looking at this,
you knowit brutal sport, it's uh. I mean ultimately all
sports are just mock wars anyway, and maybe this is
(13:33):
just a little more honest sport. Yeah. The idea behind
this that I've seen is that, um, again, it's a
life and death game that was played in the person
who won, who actually offered his head to be executed. Again,
this is because uh, in this mindset, you know, it
would be a great honor to to sacrifice yourself. So UM,
(13:56):
keep that in mind, because I want to go back
to the structure of this, the temples actually formed a
whispering gallery. The amplified sounds spoken within them, and you
can stand in this temple or by the temple side. Again,
you've got two walls on either side and then temples
on either side, and you can speak in a low
(14:18):
voice and you can be heard distinctly at the end
of the court five hundred feet away. And the idea,
at least according to David Loveman, who is one of
the researchers probing the acoustic properties of ancient sites, is
that um, the minds could create other sounds, not just whispering.
They could do a whooping bird flying from right to left,
(14:40):
and he said that the priests could also make sounds
that sounded like fierce animals like rattlesnakes and jaguars. Again,
this is spectacle, this is life and death, and it
would make sense that these whispering galleries would help to
sort of ratchet up the suspense. Yeah, and it's also
worth noting here just to really get down to what
(15:00):
the minds were doing with their buildings and how they
were manipulating perception. The pyramid temple um with its again,
with its step like sides. If you're viewing this um
and you're in you're viewing it in the starting in
the spring equinox uh time, when the day and night
are at equal lengths. You'll you can see a shadow
glide down the temple steps and over several days transform
(15:22):
into different shapes as it moves across the courtyard. And
most scholars believe that this, uh, this shadow represents the
feathered Mayan god called Culkin. So if they're manipulating shadow
and light, I don't think it's any great stretch to
imagine the manipulating sound as well. Yeah. And the fact
of the matter is too, is that this is all
sort of one big ceremonial celestial marker wrapped up in one,
(15:48):
as you say, with sound with light, And it would
make sense that this is probably one of the most
important areas in which life is playing out in Mayan culture. Yeah,
I mean, in a this is the center of their universe,
you know, it's the center of their culture. Uh. And
they have all of their their mythology wrapped up in
it and around it. So yeah, Now you can find
(16:09):
whispering galleries throughout the world. Grand Central Station in New
York is one an unintentional one. I believe, you know,
the arches help to create this sonic illusion. You can
whisper in one area and be heard another. Um, let
me see the Saint Paul's Cathedral in London and the
statuary hall in the US Capitol Building. And apparently when
(16:30):
I was doing this research, this is a sort of
a unique way for someone to propose marriage. Yeah, there
you go, using the sacred aspects of the site. However
unintentional too, to take part of a sacred ritual. Yeah,
it's kind of, you know, a romantic notion to know
that you're you're ask for marriage. I suppose is traveling
(16:55):
along in this very intimate way cross base in times
who beloved's ear? All right, Now we're gonna travel to uh,
far different structure, sure, in fact, a natural structure, and
that's the Liscow Caves. Uh. And these are of course
located in France. You'll recognize the pictures, uh, ancient ancient
(17:16):
illustrations of animals on the wall. Uh, you know, very
stereotypical cave paintings. Um. So really a John back in time,
far beyond the mirror a thousand years ago of the
mine example we were discussing, Yeah, Warner Harzog actually documented
them in his film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and in
it you see herds of rocks, bulls, and horses depicted
(17:41):
running along the walls. There's a sense of motion, and
that is important in terms of archaeo acoustics. Stephen Waller
of the research lab Rock Art Acoustics believes that the
echoes of ritual clapping outside the cave would have sounded
like hundreds of hoofs drumming on the ground. Own go, yeah,
(18:03):
He said that. He also points out that many different
ancient ancient cultures attributed thunder in the sky to hoofed
thunder gods. So in that sense, it makes perfect sense
that the reverberation within the caves would be interpreted as
thunder and inspired paintings of those same different hoofed entities
right there on the cave wall. Yeah. And what's really
(18:24):
cool about this is that it enhances the experience. Now
you're painting with sounds, right, You're not just depicting life,
You're you're using the acoustics to really ramp up the experience,
and especially if you're looking at it in a ceremonial sense.
And we've talked about how the rhythmic clapping is really
important in cultures. First of all, it's something that uh,
(18:46):
that will coordinate the synapsis for everybody, right, so that's
where the group inclusion thing to clap. The Second of all,
it's something that is um intrinsic to ceremonies. So if
you're trying to get everybody together and dance and song
and to tell stories, then clapping is really important. Everyone's
looping up signaps is firing at the same time, getting
(19:08):
in the same head zone. You know. In this I
can't help but be reminded of contemporary artists and in
a niche Kapoor, because all these you know, wonderful, often
a large scale sculptures, but there's a mirror piece, a
concave mirror at the High Museum or in Atlanta, and
you stand before it and you move around in front
of it, and of course the mirrors alter how you
(19:28):
appear and those around you appear. But it also plays
with sound and you can you can have one person
stand a little closer and a little person uh stand
a little further back from it, and uh it alters
the way you hear each other. So the idea of
creating art and sound visual art and sonic art all
wrapped up into one has been with us for a
long time, it would see. Yeah, especially if you consider
(19:50):
symbolic thought, and uh this this was actually brought to
light pretty recently that Homo sapiens are not the only
one ones who are capable of symbolic thought, and researchers
this year discovered as shell engraved with a geometric pattern
at h erectus site known as Tranil on the Indonesian
(20:12):
island of Java, and that dates to between five four
hundred thirty thousand years ago. I bring this up because
it becomes an important aspect of how we order the world. Okay,
we need symbols, symbols or the basis of language. So
if you have cave art, if you have sound acoustics
(20:33):
interplaying with that, then you also have this ability to
kind of take hold of abstract thought and actually change
behavior based on symbolism. And some would even argue that
symbolic thought has ushered in morality or codes of living.
So that's why I think it's so important for all
this stuff to be considered as being wrapped up as
(20:54):
sort of one thing and not necessarily teased out as
its own. Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing ancient Aliens about this idea.
I mean it gets right down to the heart of
what humans are and what has allowed humans and considerably
could have allowed Neanderthal or Homorectus to ascend to the
heights that they have indeed, which would bring us to Stonehenge,
(21:17):
because there couldn't be, you know, anything more enigmatic wrapped
up in a mystery and then pierced with a tiny
plastic sword of confusion. Yeah, I think Stonehenge is that
what we did in our two episodes. Did we pierce
it with the tiny sort of confusion? So many swords
of confusion? Yeah, And I think that speaks to how
complex it is. Yeah. Yeah, I mean Stonehenge really resonates
(21:40):
with everyone because it is this, this amazing site that
clearly has a lot of thought involved in it, a
lot of mental construction and symbolism, and we are often
at pains to really understand what it meant from modern perspective.
A lot of great work has gone into it, and
we have a lot of great, great answers now to
what went into it at different phases, and some of
(22:03):
the ideas out there do evolve around the way Stonehenge
sounded as well as looked. Yeah, and um, as we
had discussed before, this Stonehenge is something that has been
in the works for hundreds and hundreds of years. So
think about all those people, all those generations adding to it, um,
adding symbolic layers to it as well, and you get
to the soundscape of it, and that becomes a very
(22:25):
interesting aspect of it as well. Waller in the October
edition of Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, and
Waller at the time was acting as independent scholar, he
details how the shape of Stonehenge mimics the patterns of
positive and negative interference produced by two sources of sound,
(22:47):
an auditory illusion that may have been imbued with something
that's in like otherworldly significance by a culture that didn't
necessarily understand the physics of the phenomenon, but sort of
understood that there was something happening. Yeah. He says that
the Stonehenge might have worked as kind of a giant
sound wave interference filter. And and the interference here occurs
(23:08):
when when these we have two instruments that would would
play at the sing at the same time the same note,
each creates sound waves that have alternating high and low
pressure segments, so when the high and low pressure segments collide,
they cancel each other out. Now, Waller asked blindfolded participants
to do this, to basically move around in a circle
(23:29):
with two pipers playing notes in the field. I wonder
if this is expressed on the call out for study participants. Hey,
we were doing a scientific study. We need you to
walk around blindfolded in Stonehenge while people play pipes. I
know it sounds like the plot for like this is
final top part too, you know. Yeah, I'm thinking yeah,
that or or the wicker Man or something. It doesn't
(23:49):
sound like it's going to end. Well, no it doesn't.
But but they were asked to do this, and uh
they they were the listeners who were taken through spaces
where the sound is amplified space just where the sound
waves collide out of phase and our muted so loud quiet,
loud quiet, and so on and so on. So they
did this, and he reported that, um, the same sort
(24:12):
of auditory effect was happening here when he compared it
to Stonehenge and the piper stones. Um, and also what
would have been in place, because remember Stonehenge right now
is not complete. It's just sort of um a shell
of itself. Indeed, Stonehenges that stands today is incomplete. So
if you were if you're going to study the acoustics
(24:34):
of stone Hinge, sometimes you have to actually work with
fake stone hinges as well, as we'll see in the
study of Dr Bruna Facinda of the University of Salford
in the UK. UH. This guy like like Waller studying
the acoustics of Stonehenge. But since the original stone Hinge
isn't complete, some of the stones are toppled uh and
(24:56):
also didn't have access to electric generators that would be
needed run the equipment. They turned to the World War
One Memorial of Stonehenge replica in Maryhill Museum in Washington
State here in the United States, which which is interesting
to think of studying this this ancient location by by
by using this as well as a World War One memorial. Um,
(25:18):
I'm glad they could use car Hinge. Journey of the
other generations that would change. Yeah. And didn't they pop balloons?
I believe I believe so. Yeah. Um, And the reason
is because they couldn't bring in electricity, so they're trying
to just do some some auditory noises that they could
then determine the k rate of energy and figure out
(25:38):
the energy time curves at measured positions. Now, the studies
conclusion is that Stonehenge was a reflective environment and which
any sound is made to reverberate due to the flat
heart services. So we're talking about a one second reverberation time. Yeah,
and that would certainly be enough to be noticeable by
anybody that's entering into the circle. Uh. And it's it's
(26:00):
also an optimal reverberation time for large lecture halls, ensuring
that a good speech is interpreted intelligibly by those in
the vicinity. Right. So you know, again we are not
exactly certain how it was used, why it was used,
but it's very obvious that there was that that time
(26:21):
will apps and sound, and that the person entering that
space might have experienced whatever it was, ceremonial or otherwise
at an elevated level, an altered state, given all the
other data and stimuli and meaning surrounding it. Indeed, um,
(26:41):
now you pointed out the flat hard surfaces, and uh,
it takes me back. I believe it was was Waller
who pointed out that at times they could actually find
art in caves by clapping and hearing where the reverberations. Right, yeah,
and so you end up getting into that sort of
chicken and egg, right did they? Did they paint uh? This, uh? This,
(27:02):
this horned beast on this on this hard flat surface
because it's easier to paint things on a hard flat surface,
and it's kind of the standard. Or was it because
of the reverberation the sonic residence of that particular spot.
It's hard to say. Kurt Hopkins, writing for Arts Technical says, scientists,
whether acoustic scientists or archaeologists, are for good reason reticent
(27:26):
to draw conclusions that are not based on provable, duplicable facts.
But at least we can do this picture. What's such
a structure with such an acoustical profile would have meant
experientially to visitors? The human imagination values form the circular
form of Stonehenge and the relationship of points therein must
have been lent in otherworldly dynamic by the special character
(27:50):
of its sound. Indeed, and again, I think so much
of that is is so easy to overlook in our
modern environment, where we're just surrounded by by environments that
are artificial and eight ultimately artificial sound experiences. And then
you know every album or SoundCloud file that we've ever
pumped into our head to augment our experience of reality
(28:12):
or even to augment our experience of another artificial reality.
I mean, that's how crazy our modern experiences. We're listening
to artificial soundscapes while we plug our head into a book,
or or playing or playing a video game, or maybe
we're watching a separate film. All of this is going on. Uh,
it's easy to lose track of what artificial sound and
(28:33):
artificial stimuli would have meant to early people. Well, and
I was even thinking about what it means to us
now and how important it is. And we plumed this
a little bit in our episode on time and perception
and music and how we can so easily alter it,
and we try to do that. We try to alter
our day to day experience and find some meaning it
(28:55):
through art through music. So it would make sense that
if you were devoid of of the music that we
know today, that this would become exponentially important in your
world as an early human indeed now And in closing,
we wanna, we wanna lead out here with a great
example of almost modern archaeo acoustics, if that makes sense,
(29:18):
kind of a modern take on some of these presumed
ancient practices of utilizing the natural acoustic properties of caves.
I'm talking about the Great stalac pipe organ Um, and
you'll find this in Larie Caverns of Virginia. This h
what what we're talking about here is arguably the largest
(29:40):
musical instrument in the world because instead of using pipes,
this organ is wired to us little soft rubber mallets
that gently strikes stalagtites of varying lengths and thickness. So
it looks like when when you look up a picture
of this, it looks like something that the Phantom of
the Opera or Vincent Prices is Dr fives would play
(30:02):
because it's in a cave. And here's this this sort
of old time like you know, nineteen fifties organ um.
You play the keys, little mount strike the stalactites, but
to achieve the kind of precise musical scale you need
to actually play the organ. The chosen stalactites, uh cover
a range of over three point five acres. But since
(30:23):
you're in this enclosed cave environment, you can hear the
music throughout. Yeah, this organ was invented and built in
nineteen fifty four by Leland Sprinkle, a mathematician and electronics scientists,
and it took him over three years to complete it. Uh,
we're talking about looking at each of these stalactites and
trying to figure out their thickness and how much they're
(30:45):
going to conduct sound, and then wiring up over five
miles of these chosen stalactites to create this network for
the organ. It's crazy. I mean, i'm, i'm. In recent years,
I've i've I've gotten big on the idea that you know,
caven vironments are special and we shouldn't mess with them
too much. But if you're going to mess with the
game environment, I guess turn it into an amazing pipe organ.
(31:08):
Um Sprinkle And this was interesting too. I was reading this,
of all places, on DJ Foods blog, his far fabulous
blog about music and comics and pop culture stuff, but
he mentioned that Sprinkle got the idea for this after
his son banged his head on a stalag type and
it rung with a quote pleasant sound. I love it.
(31:31):
I love people like Leland Sprinkle. He's like, and now
I can create the world's largest instrument underground US. Yeah,
and it's uh appparently the used to you could buy
vinyl records of music uh that that that was produced
using this pipe organ. And in two thousand and eleven,
(31:51):
the Finnish Swedish music collective Peppe de Lux actually became
the first artist who write and record an original composition
on the Great Stalac pipe organ. Uh. And you can
find that out the name of the find that out there.
The name of the album is a Queen of the
Wave and uh. And also you can just look up
DJ Foods post about it. I believe he has an
embedded SoundCloud. I'll be sure to link to that, as
(32:13):
well as some other of the interesting articles we've discussed
here in the landing page for this podcast episode. All Right,
what do you guys think, um, when it comes to
our chao acoustics? Is this just the old pattern recognition
of the mind or is this intentional ritualized landscapes? Yeah?
Or is it you know, is somewhere in between. We'd
(32:35):
love to hear from everybody. Uh. It's certainly an issue
that that people seem to have strong opinions about. Um,
where are you gonna find us? Well, you're gonna find
us stuff to blow your mind dot com. That's our
our website. That's our mother page. That's where you'll find
all of our podcast episodes are blog post our videos,
links out to our various social media accounts. And if
you would like to send us a missive please do
(32:56):
we like to hear from you guys a lot? You
can send us an email at blow the Mind at
how staff works dot com. For more illness and thousands
of other topics, visit how staff works dot com
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