The sound and colour of relative silence…
02 Aug 2021
Dear LPG,
I was thinking about one of my favourite Simon and Garfunkel songs recently, ‘The sound of silence’. It was first released on January 17th 1966, and I know that older people visit this website, but I can guarantee that when it was released the vast majority of readers of this post were not yet 40 years old and listening to a lot of pop music.
I am old now, but I was about 22 years old back then and there was lots of music to listen to, not to mention all sorts of other noises; some nice and some not so nice.
Nearly everything we do creates noise, but the ears of the people who lived two hundred years ago did not have to deal with all the sounds that ours do these days. That thought got me wondering about the last generation of people who really were able to find a place to hear absolutely nothing, and I suspect that there was never one. I remember that if I wanted to help my ears get away from it all I would take a walk down by the river Thames near where HMS Belfast is moored, but though the sound of water is tranquil the noise is still there.
When at home we 21st century bods often have the radio or telly on these days and even if we don’t, there is always the sound of the traffic, a couple of fighting cats, or next door’s DIY that we can’t help but hear. In fact, I suspect that if we are honest, we would rather hear the sound of a park with birds tweeting and water rippling, our favourite music, or some other background noise because the real sound of silence is truly alien to us.
These days the closest to silence that we ever get is the sound of white noise or that is what I thought until I looked at the internet where I learnt just how many colours relative silence comes in.
When I see colours I think I have a fair idea of which ones I am looking at but the internet explains that, even if we ever find a place where we can experience relative silence, there is nearly always some noise. Even I have heard of white noise but the big question is, do you really know what coloured noise you are listening to?
I stumbled upon some information about it online. I took a look, or should I say a listen, on the internet and having found some colour variations I have asked LPG to provide a few links so that you can hear for yourselves…
PH, Ladywell
PH shares some information for you to see…
… and some for you to hear…
… and also asked us to offer you a virtual tour of the Thames river walk he mentioned and the song that got him thinking in the first place…
