Friday, June 17, 2005

Sound or Noise?

Moving from this rental house will mean leaving behind some familiar nightly noises. I won’t call them sounds because they really are noise. We live exactly one house away from two gas stations (Yes, they are side by side.). At approximately 4:00 A.M. several times a week, at least one of the stations is getting its underground tanks filled. This means the sound of a large truck backing with its warning beep going off. This is followed by very loud clanking, which I think must be the tank covers being removed and set on the concrete beside the hoses. Sometimes I can even smell the fumes as they drift over to my house!

We also sleep only two blocks from the fire station. Their alarm and the sirens from their trucks are usually heard at least one night a week heading to the nearby freeway or into the neighborhood.

The local hospital is about six blocks on the other side of us and their sirens can also be heard frequently.

In addition to all of this noise, we get the rush hour evening and morning traffic sounds as we are two blocks from a MAJOR intersection.

The apartment we are moving to will have some of these sounds, but I am hoping with less intensity and frequency. I think the traffic outside the bedroom window will be the worst. But we are on the fifth (top) floor of the complex with large trees outside the window, so I am hoping that will be a buffer.

And, when we move to our retirement house in the ‘Four-Acre-Woods” and on the water, I am hoping that the primary noise will that of birds, insects and wind. (Of course, across the water there is a guy who has equipment to install docks!)

I am adaptable for the most part to changes in my environment. When we lived in Indonesia, our bedroom, which had jalousied (slatted) windows, was directly behind the local Mosque. The rooftop speaker faced our bedroom window and at sunrise every morning the call to prayer came in loud and clear. After a few weeks we slept through it!

I do think that noise does cause stress on our physical well-being even if we adjust and adapt. A few weeks ago, Newsweek published a lengthy section on hearing loss. The article included a statement that hearing loss in the twenty-thirty something generation may be greater as they get older because of the wide-spread and lengthy use of earphones for listening to music. While they addressed volume that also said this has an adverse effect on our hearing since it screens out background noises and wider range noises. I am hoping they are incorrect.

My son, who is an audio engineer, once said that audio engineers have a working-life-span of about 20 years, because after that time their hearing is not as discerning and they have to move into management or do something else. It is interesting that the technologies (visual and computer) for sounds cannot replace an engineer’s biological ears totally.

I have not discussed at all the use of sound for control of people. NPR did a program on that use by the Israeli Military…ugh.

2 comments:

  1. My husband is hard of hearing... has been that way seemingly since we got married. It is probably hereditary since most of the elders in his family are the same. But oddly enough, only the MEN have this problem. So my husband often jokes that it's a defense mechanism.

    I'm the same way with noises. When I visit my in-laws' all I hear are the rustle of trees and various birds. Maybe every so often the engine of a boat. I never really noticed it years ago, even when we lived near O'Hare airport and had to strain to hear the tv at night due to all the planes coming and going. But I think I'll forever be a suburbanite. Being surrounded by the usual city noises would take getting used to. Funny how it's easy to adapt to them though, like if they suddenly stopped the quietness would be more deafening.

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  2. Good luck on your move. Have another drink on me!

    Millie

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