CNMN > Projects > Sound is Touch

Dr. Daniel Oore, International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation & Memorial University

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Sound is Touch

description

Lis­te­ning, tou­ching, fee­ling and soun­ding acti­vi­ties using your voice, hands, whole body, ins­tru­ments, or spea­kers (e.g. on phone, com­pu­ter, ear­phones). These sound acti­vi­ties are for people of all —inclu­ding hea­ring and non-hea­ring— abilities.

Note : To help prevent germ trans­mis­sion, wash and/or disin­fect your hands, other body parts, and objects used before, in bet­ween, and after the acti­vi­ties des­cri­bed here !

INTRODUCTION

Your music tou­ched me —I was moved.

The meta­phors we use reveal our lived expe­rience : we feel sound all over our bodies ! Feel the music… feel the bass !

Our uni­verse is filled with ongoing motion, resul­ting in touch that trans­fers ener­gy. The ener­gy of this touch can cause more move­ment, such as vibra­tions. Vibra­tions are back and forth oscil­la­tions of mat­ter that rever­be­rate and tra­vel as waves. When vibra­tions reach our bodies they touch and move us, our skin, bones, joints, blood ves­sels, and organs, like our ears.

Sound touches us, cau­sing and also com­pel­ling us to move in dif­ferent ways. This is power­ful. Sound and music are inti­mate : they touch the entire body, out­side and inside. Vibra­tions tra­vel and touch us, from across dis­tances. Eve­ry­bo­dy has sounds they want or don’t want to touch. Can you think of some ?

LET’S TOUCH SOUND !

Sing a conti­nuous sound (e.g. a vowel). Can you feel your mouth, neck, and other body parts vibra­ting ? Conti­nue sin­ging the same sound and gent­ly touch toge­ther your upper and lower lips. Then try tou­ching toge­ther your upper and lower teeth —the front teeth and then the back. What changes do you feel ?

Slow­ly shift back and forth bet­ween two sung sounds (e.g. two vowels like “ah-oo-ah-oo”). Can you feel what move­ments in your body cause the sound to change ? Sing and hold the palm of your hand just in front of your mouth. What do you feel on your hand and face ?

Now sing and use your hands to gent­ly touch dif­ferent areas of your body (e.g. your nose, lips, throat, back, or chest). How do vibra­tions of dif­ferent sounds feel in dif­ferent parts of your body ? Gra­dual­ly change the sound (e.g.: to a dif­ferent vowel, conso­nant or sono­rant, to a dif­ferent octave, or to a dif­ferent loud­ness). Do cer­tain sounds feel distinct ?

Explore tou­ching sounds while your ears are plug­ged (or while wea­ring head­phones that are playing white noise). How does this change your sen­sa­tion of vibrations ?

Explore vibra­tions with objects in your home : a musi­cal ins­tru­ment or a spoon tap­ping and sli­ding along a metal bowl or table. How do the vibra­tions of these dif­ferent motions feel ? Try gent­ly dam­pe­ning the vibra­tions of the bowl on dif­ferent parts of your arm or foot. Fill the bowl with water and conti­nue… can you see the vibra­tions rip­pling on the water ? Sing dif­ferent vowels into the bowl until you find one that real­ly reso­nates ! Make music by explo­ring the sen­sa­tions of vibra­tions —try plug­ging your ears and also clo­sing your eyes.

Sound is touch. When we hear sound, we are vibra­ting —moving— toge­ther with this sound. This is powerful.

Like the tiny parts inside the ear, a micro­phone contains thin and sen­si­tive com­po­nents that vibrate simi­lar­ly to the sounds that touch it. The microphone’s vibra­tions are conver­ted into varia­tions of elec­tri­cal ener­gy which get trans­mit­ted to other devices and, even­tual­ly, back into vibra­tions of a spea­ker… at a concert or in your phone or com­pu­ter. Explore the vibra­tions of spea­kers. Inflate a bal­loon and explore how its thin mem­brane vibrates with dif­ferent sounds. What does your favou­rite music feel like to touch ? Would you reco­gnize it with your ears plugged ?

Can you tell if someone you know is fee­ling sad, joy­ful, angry, or ano­ther emo­tion, by the sounds they make when they come home ? Do you feel their vibe-rations ?

Maybe your friend will explore vibra­tion with you ? Make sound toge­ther, per­haps taking turns care­ful­ly and gent­ly tou­ching agreed upon parts of each other’s bodies or musi­cal ins­tru­ments. Where do you feel motion and vibra­tion when your friend plays a recor­der or gui­tar ? If you’re explo­ring through a phone or com­pu­ter connec­tion, take turns soun­ding and fee­ling the spea­ker vibra­tions against your bodies.

Dis­co­ver which types of sounds your dif­ferent body parts are sen­si­tive to. What parts of your body feel more sen­si­tive in dis­tin­gui­shing higher, mid, or lower-range fre­quen­cies (pitches), and bet­ween more and less intense vibra­tions ? What vibra­tions com­pel you to move and dance ?

When you hear a sound, notice and explore your sen­sa­tions of vibra­tions and your ins­tincts to move your body.

Let sound touch us ! 

FURTHER VARIATIONS & IDEAS :

How does tou­ching a sound with your hand, alter the sound ? Fli­cking the tongue while voca­li­zing or fli­cking the hand in front of the voca­li­zing mouth is an ancient tech­nique and has an ono­ma­to­poeic term in English : ‘ulu­la­tion’ (which is also used to refer to wai­ling). In fact, dif­ferent lan­guages seem to use com­pa­rable “l‑l” sounds to des­cribe this sound-fli­cking tech­nique. Some theo­ries sug­gest that the first part of the word “hallelu+ja” (Hebrew “praise/shout to + G‑d”) ori­gi­na­ted from such prai­se­ful, trilling ulu­la­tion. Dif­ferent reli­gions des­cribe God and God’s crea­tive power as sound and vibration.

(Clean your phone!) Cup your hand around the phone spea­ker and then gent­ly move your fin­gers and palm to change the reso­nance fre­quen­cy. You can also do this with the spea­ker pla­ced near your mouth and move your mouth as though you are saying “wow wow” (but without using your voice). You are chan­ging the vowel shape of your mouth a bit like a “wah wah” mute on a brass ins­tru­ment or elec­tric pedal. Remem­ber ear­lier we explo­red shif­ting back-and-forth bet­ween sounds, like “oo-ah-oo” —”wow”?!

Run your fin­ger along dif­ferent objects (e.g. a plas­tic contai­ner, a drin­king glass, a wall, a table). Can you guess the vibra­to­ry qua­li­ty of a sur­face by mere­ly hol­ding it, without moving your skin along its sur­face ? Can you infer the tex­tu­ral rhythm of an object just by loo­king at it ? Use a pen­cil and paper to draw ima­gi­na­ry shapes and tex­tures (not objects), and give your page of dra­wings to a friend for them to create the sound of each tex­ture (per­haps as you indi­cate the pres­sure and rate of motion with your hand). Guess which of your images your friend is soni­fying ! Adapt the “Eye Spy…” game : “I touch with my lit­tle fin­ger some­thing that feels like [make the sound of the tex­ture with your mouth]!” (Cf. “Opta­con”.)

Are mecha­no, ther­mo, pho­to, and chemo–reception each a form of touch ?

Sing a sound and ima­gine your toes or other extre­mi­ties vibra­ting or reso­na­ting with your voice. Do you feel some­thing ? How and why ?

Micro­phones reso­nate with sounds that touch their sen­si­tive com­po­nents. Do other objects also “feel” each other’s vibra­tions and reso­nate toge­ther ? Expe­riment with or watch videos of pen­du­lum clocks or mecha­ni­cal metro­nomes syn­chro­ni­zing when they are pla­ced on a com­mon sur­face. (Cf. “Entrain­ment or Mode Locking”.)

ABOUT THE SENSATION OF MECHANICAL VIBRATION :

“Mecha­no­re­cep­tors” are dis­tri­bu­ted across our body to sense dif­ferent qua­li­ties of touch, vibra­tion, and pressure.

If a vibra­tion oscil­lates regu­lar­ly (“per­io­di­cal­ly” retur­ning to the same condi­tion at equal incre­ments of time) bet­ween 20 to 20,000 Hz (cycles per second) and is intense (loud) enough, the ear fuses the sepa­rate oscil­la­tions into an expe­rience of conti­nuous pit­ched tone. The lowest note on a pia­no is 27.5 Hz, and a lit­tle below that, from 25 down to 20 Hz, pitches sound more wob­bly and indis­tinct, and from 20 Hz down (known as “infra­pitch”) to about 0.5 Hz (one cycle eve­ry two seconds), each oscil­la­tion is heard as a dis­crete click (a “pulse”) within a stea­di­ly repea­ting rhythm. Dif­ferent oscil­la­tions can also be expe­rien­ced as vibra­tion and pres­sure changes by mecha­no­re­cep­tors all over our body. And even fre­quen­cies that we can’t feel as dis­tinct vibra­tion or pres­sure changes, may still affect our bodies.  

RELATED TERMS & RESOURCES TO EXPLORE (HYPERLINKED)

YOUTUBE PLAYLIST : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0-rkS6BcMVyt-94SaOujtKJm_vJa0IBa

 

Mecha­no­re­cep­tors : 

Tado­ma

Vibra­tese Language

Opta­con

Pho­non

Cyma­tics

Essen­tic and Sen­tic Forms (See Clynes, in book & docu­ment list below)

Entrain­ment or mode locking

Ves­ti­bu­lar Self-Motion (See Bha­ru­cha, in book & docu­ment list below)

CREDITS

Concept — Daniel Oore

Text — Daniel Oore

Nar­ra­tion — Daniel Oore

Video Demons­tra­tion — Jona­than Oore & Daniel Oore

Video­gra­phy — Sta­cy Smith, Jona­than Oore, Daniel Oore

Video & Audio edi­ting — Daniel Oore

Ori­gi­nal Music & Sound­scape — Daniel Oore

Consul­tants — Dr. Mor­de­cai Oore, P. Eng (IMP Aeros­pace) & Dr. Jona­than Oore, MD (McGill Uni­ver­si­ty) 

WARNINGS :

To help prevent germ trans­mis­sion, wash and/or disin­fect your hands, other body parts, and objects used before, in bet­ween, and after the acti­vi­ties des­cri­bed. 

The demons­tra­tions in this video have been sped up to allow a higher num­ber of ideas to be pre­sen­ted in an enter­tai­ning man­ner. Trying these acti­vi­ties at such a fast paces is not recom­men­ded (and could even result in inju­ry…). If you want to watch the acti­vi­ties slow­ly, select a slo­wer play­back speed in the You­Tube video pre­fe­rences. 

BOOKS & DOCUMENTS WITH INFORMATION & IDEAS ABOUT SOUND, VIBRATION, TOUCH, AND HEARING

Ball, Phi­lip. The Music Ins­tinct : How Music Works and Why We Can’t Do Without It. New York : Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2010.

Bash­wi­ner, David Michael. “Musi­cal Emo­tion : Toward a Bio­lo­gi­cal­ly Groun­ded Theo­ry.” The Uni­ver­si­ty of Chi­ca­go, 2010.

Bea­ment, James. How We Hear Music : The Rela­tion­ship Bet­ween Music and the Hea­ring Mecha­nism. Boy­dell Press, 2003.

Berendt, Joa­chim-Ernst. Nada Brah­ma, the World Is Sound : Music and the Land­scape of Conscious­ness. Des­ti­ny Books, 1987.

Berg, Jere­my M., John L. Tymocz­ko, and Lubert Stryer. “Hea­ring Depends on the Spee­dy Detec­tion of Mecha­ni­cal Sti­mu­li.” Bio­che­mis­try. 5th Edi­tion, 2002. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22542/.

Bha­ru­cha, Jam­shed J., Mea­gan Cur­tis, and Kai­von Paroo. “Varie­ties of Musi­cal Expe­rience.” Cog­ni­tion 100, no. 1 (May 2006): 131–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2005.11.008.

Blauert, Jens, ed. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Acous­tics. Ber­lin : Sprin­ger-Ver­lag, 2005.

Boom­sli­ter, Paul, and War­ren Creel. “The Long Pat­tern Hypo­the­sis in Har­mo­ny and Hea­ring.” Jour­nal of Music Theo­ry 5, no. 1 (1961): 2. https://doi.org/10.2307/842868.

Bra­con­nier, Debo­rah. “Woman Can Lite­ral­ly Feel the Noise.” Medi­cal Xpress, May 30, 2011. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2011–05-woman-literally-noise.html.

Bur­rows, David L. Time and the Warm Body a Musi­cal Pers­pec­tive on the Construc­tion of Time. Lei­den ; Bos­ton : Brill, 2007.

Caria­ni, Peter. “Tem­po­ral Codes, Timing Nets, and Music Per­cep­tion.” Jour­nal of New Music Research 30, no. 2 (2001): 107–135.

Chan­gi­zi, M.A. Har­nes­sed : How Lan­guage and Music Mimi­cked Nature and Trans­for­med Ape to Man. Kindle edi­tion. Ben­Bel­la Books, 2011.

Clynes, Man­fred. “Time-Forms, Nature’s Gene­ra­tors and Com­mu­ni­ca­tors of Emo­tion.” In Robot and Human Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, 1992. Pro­cee­dings., IEEE Inter­na­tio­nal Work­shop On, 18–31. IEEE, 1992. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=253908.

Clynes, Man­fred, and Yehu­di Menu­hin. Sen­tics : The Touch of Emo­tions. Anchor Press Gar­den City, NY, 1977. http://senticcycles.org/home/sentics/articles/sentics.pdf.

Fra­ser, J. T. “The Art of the Audible ‘Now.’” Music Theo­ry Spec­trum 7 (April 1985): 181–84. https://doi.org/10.2307/745887.

Gau­lon, C., C. Derec, T. Com­briat, P. Mar­mot­tant, and F. Elias. “Sound and Vision : Visua­li­za­tion of Music with a Soap Film.” Euro­pean Jour­nal of Phy­sics 38, no. 4 (July 1, 2017): 045804. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361–6404/aa7147. (https://www-liphy.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/pagesperso/marmottant/Publications_files/Gaulon2017EJP.pdf)

God­win, Jos­ce­lyn. Har­mo­nies of Hea­ven and Earth : Mys­ti­cism in Music from Anti­qui­ty to the Avant-Garde. Simon and Schus­ter, 1987.

———. The Mys­te­ry of the Seven Vowels : In Theo­ry and Prac­tice. Grand Rapids, MI, USA : Phanes Press, 1991.

Gold­stein, E. Bruce, Glyn W. Hum­phreys, Mar­ga­ret Shif­frar, and William A. Yost, eds. Bla­ck­well Hand­book of Sen­sa­tion and Per­cep­tion. Bla­ck­well Hand­books of Expe­ri­men­tal Psy­cho­lo­gy 1. Oxford, UK ; Mal­den, MA : Bla­ck­well Pub, 2005.

Han­del, Ste­phen. Per­cep­tual Cohe­rence : Hea­ring and Seeing. Oxford ; New York : Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2006.

Hud­speth, A. J. “How Hea­ring Hap­pens.” Neu­ron 19, no. 5 (1997): 947–950.

Hugill, Andrew. The Digi­tal Musi­cian. New York : Rout­ledge, 2008.

Kei­del, W. “The Sen­so­ry Detec­tion of Vibra­tions.” In Foun­da­tions of Sen­so­ry Science, edi­ted by W.W. Daw­son and J.M. Enoch, 465–512. Ber­lin : Sprin­ger-Ver­lag, 1984.

Lund­borg, Göran. The Hand and the Brain. Lon­don : Sprin­ger Lon­don, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1007/978–1‑4471–5334‑4.

Mayr, Albert. “Sketches for a Low-Fre­quen­cy Sol­fège.” Music Theo­ry Spec­trum 7 (April 1985): 107–13. https://doi.org/10.2307/745882.

Mazur, Joseph. The Motion Para­dox the 2,500-Year-Old Puzzle Behind All the Mys­te­ries of Time and Space. New York : Dut­ton, 2007.

Mer­chel, Sebas­tian, and M. Ercan Altin­soy. “Audi­to­ry-Tac­tile Expe­rience of Music.” In Musi­cal Hap­tics, edi­ted by Ste­fa­no Papet­ti and Cha­ra­lam­pos Sai­tis, 123–48. Sprin­ger Series on Touch and Hap­tic Sys­tems. Cham : Sprin­ger Inter­na­tio­nal Publi­shing, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/978–3‑319–58316-7_7.

Nuss­baum, Charles O. The Musi­cal Repre­sen­ta­tion : Mea­ning, Onto­lo­gy, and Emo­tion. A Brad­ford Book. Cam­bridge, Mass : MIT Press, 2007.

Research Fea­tures. “Over­lap­ping Senses : Hea­ring and Touch Share Cir­cuits in the Brain,” April 5, 2018. https://researchfeatures.com/2018/04/05/hearing-and-touch-share-circuits-in-the-brain/.

Pareyón, Gabriel. On Musi­cal Self-Simi­la­ri­ty : Inter­se­mio­sis as Synec­doche and Ana­lo­gy. Ima­tra ; [Hel­sin­ki]: Inter­na­tio­nal Semio­tics Ins­ti­tute ; Semio­tic Socie­ty of Fin­land, 2011.

Pari­si, David. Archaeo­lo­gies of Touch : Inter­fa­cing with Hap­tics from Elec­tri­ci­ty to Com­pu­ting. U of Min­ne­so­ta Press, 2018.

Pater­son, Mark. The Senses of Touch : Hap­tics, Affects, and Tech­no­lo­gies. Oxford ; New York : Berg, 2007.

Pie­chows­ki, Michael M. “The Logi­cal and the Empi­ri­cal Form of Fee­ling.” Jour­nal of Aes­the­tic Edu­ca­tion 15, no. 1 (Janua­ry 1981): 31. https://doi.org/10.2307/3332208.

Plomp, Rei­nier. The Intel­li­gent Ear : On the Nature of Sound Per­cep­tion. Mah­wah, N.J : Law­rence Erl­baum Asso­ciates, 2002.

Pogo­ri­lows­ki, Andrei. The Music of the Tem­po­ra­lists. Bucha­rest, Roma­nia : André Pogo­ri­loff­ski, 2012.

Reed, C. M., N. I. Dur­lach, L. D. Brai­da, and M. C. Schultz. “Ana­ly­tic Stu­dy of the Tado­ma Method : Effects of Hand Posi­tion on Seg­men­tal Speech Per­cep­tion.” Jour­nal of Speech and Hea­ring Research 32, no. 4 (Decem­ber 1989): 921–29. https://doi.org/10.1044/jshr.3204.921.

Reed, C. M., W. M. Rabi­no­witz, N. I. Dur­lach, L. D. Brai­da, S. Conway-Fithian, and M. C. Schultz. “Research on the Tado­ma Method of Speech Com­mu­ni­ca­tion.” The Jour­nal of the Acous­ti­cal Socie­ty of Ame­ri­ca 77, no. 1 (Janua­ry 1985): 247–57. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.392266.

Ro, Tony, Joha­nan Hsu, Nafi Yasar, Cait­lin Elmore, and Michael Beau­champ. “Sound Enhances Touch Per­cep­tion.” Expe­ri­men­tal Brain Research. Expe­ri­men­telle Hirn­for­schung. Expé­ri­men­ta­tion Céré­brale 195 (April 1, 2009): 135–43. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-009‑1759‑8.

Shus­ter­man, Richard. Body Conscious­ness : A Phi­lo­so­phy of Mind­ful­ness and Somaes­the­tics. Cam­bridge ; New York : Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2008.

Stein, Debo­rah Kent. “The Opta­con : Past, Present, and Future.” nfb.org. Acces­sed July 2, 2020. https://www.nfb.org/sites/www.nfb.org/files/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm98/bm980506.htm.

Sterne, Jona­than, ed. The Sound Stu­dies Rea­der. New York : Rout­ledge, 2012.

Truax, Bar­ry. Acous­tic Com­mu­ni­ca­tion. West­port, Conn.: Ablex, 2001.

Van­He­mert, Kyle. “Cos­mic Visuals Made With Light, Sound, and … Soap?” Wired, March 27, 2014. https://www.wired.com/2014/03/cosmic-visuals-made-light-sound-soap/.

Von Helm­holtz, Her­mann. On the Sen­sa­tions of Tone as a Phy­sio­lo­gi­cal Basis for the Theo­ry of Music. Lon­don : Long­mans, Green, 1875.

Zbi­kows­ki, Law­rence Michael. Concep­tua­li­zing Music : Cog­ni­tive Struc­ture, Theo­ry, and Ana­ly­sis. AMS Stu­dies in Music. Oxford ; New York : Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2002.

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