Sonority

“ The general terms—loudness and quality, embrace all the distinctions heard in a noise, as in the collision of two unelastic sticks. Pitch and duration can scarcely be considered as belonging to common noise. Thus we have— (1) noise whose audible distinctions are comprehended under the general terms loudness and quality; (2) common sound, whose audible distinctions are comprehended under the general terms—loudness, quality, duration, and every varying pitch; (3) musical sound, whose audible distinctions are comprehended under the general terms—loudness, quality, duration, and uniform pitch. ”

“ A simple noise being a sound-wave, has its wave-form or make-mark. The blending of many such would produce a tone in that likeness; hence, a musical note is a blending of like noises, and every noise is really the first wave, the key-note of a musical tone. Take the ringing of a door-bell. Here the ear hears not only a musical tone, a sound-blend, in the ring of the bell, but also the noise of the clapper's clang, clang, clang. The vibrations of the bell throw the air into musical waves, shown in Fig. 5, while a huge clang-wave will sweep
Fig. ”

“ It is biblically asserted and scientifically demonstrable that space is full of causes of sound. To anyone capable of turning these causes to effects this sound is not dull and monotonous, but richly varied into songful music. Light makes its impression of color by its different number of vibrations. So music sounds its keys. We know the number of vibrations necessary for the note C of the soprano scale, and the number that runs the pitch up to inaudibility. We know the number of vibrations of light necessary to give us a sensation of red or violet. ”

“ A noise, low and faint at first, just taking the edge of silence with a musical murmur that seemed to die out for an instant now and again, then coming again stronger than before, and so growing by fine degrees louder and more confirmed, and resolving itself at last into a sound which could not be mistaken for that of anything but falling water. ”

“ I seemed to hear depths and heights of sound beyond the scale which human ears can receive, keen, far-up octaves, like vividly twinkling starlight of music, and mighty slow vibrations of gigantic strings going down into grand thunders of depths, octaves below anything otherwise appreciable as musical notes. ”

“ Highest and Deepest Tones—Rapidity of Vibration Determined by the Siren—Determination of the Lengths of Sonorous Waves—Wave-Lengths of the Voice in Man and Woman—Transmission of Musical Sounds through Liquids and Solids
IN OUR last chapter we considered the propagation through air of a sound of momentary duration. We have to-day to consider continuous sounds, and to make ourselves in the first place acquainted with the physical distinction between noise and music. As far as sensation goes, everybody knows the difference between these two things. ”

“ If there is no regular recurrence of waves, it is a noise. The rapidity of these regular beats determines the pitch of tones. That quality or timbre by which one sound is distinguished from another of the same pitch and intensity is due to the different complications of waves in the air; the ability to discriminate the various waves in the vibrating air is, therefore, the condition of our finding music in it; for every wave has its period, and what we call a noise is a complication of notes too complex for our organs or our attention to decipher. ”

“ When the rapid motions which produce sound are irregular, we hear noise; when the motions are regular and definite, we have a musical tone; the rattling of carriage wheels on stones, the roar of waves, the rustling of leaves are noise, not music. In all these illustrations we have rapid but irregular motion; no two stones strike the wheel in exactly the same way, no two waves produce pulses in the air of exactly the same character, no two leaves rustle in precisely the same way. ”

“ Hearing.—What we call sound, noise, or tone, is a mental appreciation of the effects of the tremulous or vibratory motions of the particles of an elastic fluid, such as air or water, on the auditory or acoustic nerves of the internal ear. Sonorous vibrations are produced by the concussion of hard bodies, by the bolt of lightning, by the vibrations of stringed instruments of music, by the forcible current of air thrown into the tubes of wind instruments, and by the air driven from the lungs through the organs of voice in reptiles, birds, and mammalia. ”

“ Thus the air must include a vast variety of molecules of various degrees of elasticity, and capable of vibrating in as many different periods as there are tones from all kinds of sonorous bodies; and these molecules, set in motion by the musician and falling on our ear, answer to our ideas, according to each man's temperament. I myself believe that sound is identical in its nature with light. Sound is light, perceived under another form; each acts through vibrations to which man is sensitive and which he transforms, in the nervous centres, into ideas. ”

“ The tuning fork is musical. Here we have rapid, regular motion; vibrations follow each other at perfectly definite intervals, and the air disturbance produced by one vibration is exactly like the disturbance produced by a later vibration. The sound waves which reach the ear are regular in time and kind and strength, and we call the sensation music.
To produce noise a body must vibrate in such a way as to give short, quick shocks to the air; to produce music a body [279] must not only impart short, quick shocks to the air, but must impart these shocks with unerring regularity and strength. ”

“ Musical sound is the name we give to this seemingly simple feeling which is clearly resolvable into simpler feelings. Well-known experiments prove that when equal blows or taps are made one after another at a rate not exceeding some sixteen per second, the effect of each is perceived as a separate noise; but when the rapidity with which the blows follow one another exceeds this, the noises are no longer identified in separate states of consciousness, and there arises in place of them a continuous state of consciousness, called a tone. ”

“ After listening for a few moments, a distant, unearthly noise becomes faintly audible—a long, low, mysterious moaning, which never changes, which is felt on the ear as well as heard by it—a sound that might proceed from some incalculable distance, from some far invisible height—a sound so unlike anything that is heard on the upper ground, in the free air of heaven ”

“ Within a certain restricted length of air-waves lies all of the pleasurable sensation which we call musical tone. But as we rise in the scale the tone begins to become uncertain, until the highest note of the instrument is again indefinite noise. ”

“ If the Sonorous Body be plac'd near Water, the Sound will easily be convey'd, yet mollified; as Experience teacheth us from a Ring of Bells near a River, and a great Gun shot off at Sea, which yet differ much in the strength, and softness and continuance, or propagation of their Sounds, from the same at Land, where the Sound is more harsh and more perishing, or much sooner decays.
3. In a Plain a Voice may be heard at a far greater distance than in uneven Ground. ”

“ The Various Qualities of Sound.—Physically, sounds consist of vibrations, and these are, generally speaking, aërial waves. When the waves are non-periodic the result is a{54} noise; when periodic it is what is nowadays called a tone, or note. The loudness of a sound depends on the force of the waves. When they recur periodically a peculiar quality called pitch is the effect of their frequency. ”

“ Hearing, feeling (as regards warmth) and seeing are all produced by vibrations. It is quite in accord with the doctrine of modern science to believe that the morning stars did “sing together,” for light is essentially rhythmic, and to senses adapted to the perception of their harmonies, the sunbeams would make music. The various colors of the spectrum differ solely in the wave-lengths of their vibrations. The red corresponds to low pitch in music and the violet to high pitch. As the vibrations of air striking upon the ear increase in rapidity, the sound [324] rises in the scale. ”

“ By various contrivances we can compel the vibrations of the air to declare themselves; we know the length and frequency of sonorous waves, and we have also obtained great mastery over the various methods by which the air is thrown into vibration. We know the phenomena and laws of vibrating rods, of organ-pipes, strings, membranes, plates, and bells. We can abolish one sound by another. We know the physical meaning of music and noise, of harmony and discord. In short, as regards sound we have a very clear notion of the external physical processes which correspond to our sensations. ”

“ Then we were quickly conscious of the noise, mostly of human voices, speaking or shouting strange speech in every direction, which the wooden open-plank house caught up much as a violin does its sound, and multiplied without transferring them into music. ”

“ The structural basis of Music is vibration. Sound comes to us in the guise of air-waves, which impinge upon the drum of the ear. The nerve-impulse thus aroused is conveyed to the brain, and there translated into sound. Strictly speaking there is thus no sound until the brain translates the message, while if the machinery of the ear be too dull to answer to the vibration the sound simply does not exist for us. ”

“ Sound means a succession of vibrations produced in their regular order, like music, whereas noise is a disorganized vibration. For instance, falling water, like our cataract here, is sound, but the report of George's gun was a noise."
"I can see the difference. Would a wagon going rapidly over a pavement be a noise or a sound?" ”

“ Two streams of sound pass constantly through the inner ear of one who understands or appreciates the rhythm of our verse: one, never actually found in the real sounds which are uttered, is the absolute rhythm, its equal time-intervals moving on in infinitely perfect progression; the other, represented by the actual movement of the verse, is constantly shifting by quickening, retarding, strengthening or weakening its sounds, yet always hovers along the line of the perfect rhythm, and bids the ear refer to that perfect rhythm the succession of its pulsations. ”

“ Our ears are pleased by a harmonious concert. Sound does not exist; it is merely an impression of the senses produced by vibrations [106] of a certain size and rapidity on the air, which in themselves are silent. There would be no sound without the acoustic nerve and the brain. ”

“ Concerning symphony, he shows how sounds harmonize. A quick sound is acute, a slow is grave. Therefore acute sounds move the senses the quicker; and these dying and grave sounds supervening, what arises from the contemperation of one with the other causes pleasure to the ear, which we call harmony. And by what has been said, it may easily be understood that air is the instrument of these things. For sound is the stroke upon the sense of the hearer, caused by the air; and the air strikes as it is struck by the thing moving,—if violent, acutely,—if languid, softly. ”

“ No human voice, however, has so great a range of tone; the highest soprano notes of women correspond to [282] but 1000 vibrations a second, and the deepest bass of men falls but to 80 vibrations a second.
While the human voice is limited in its production of sound,—rarely falling below 80 vibrations a second and rarely exceeding 1000 vibrations a second,—the ear is by no means limited to that range in hearing. ”

“ The sensation of sound is produced by rapid fluctuation in the pressure of the atmosphere on the tympanum of the ear. If the fluctuations are irregular and non-periodic, the sound is called a noise; if they are cyclic and follow a regular and sufficiently rapid periodic law, the sound is musical. ”

“ In the inner chamber of the ear physical movements are in some wholly inscrutable manner translated into sensations of sound, and the confused aggregation of waves and ripples in the air, beating against the tympanic membrane there, takes effect in producing impulses which travel up the auditory nerve and expend their energy finally in the creation of sensations of melody and tune, which arouse emotions, revive memories, and stir sometimes the deepest feelings of our minds. ”

“ There is no doubt, however, that the universal and dead silence generally prevalent at night renders our auditory nerves sensible to impressions which would otherwise escape notice. The analogy between sound and light is perfect in this as in so many other respects. In the general light of day the stars disappear. In the continual hum of voices, which is always going on by day, and which reach us from all quarters, and never leave the ear time to attain complete tranquillity, those feeble sounds which catch our attention at night make no impression. ”

“ Nature always possesses a certain sonorousness, as in the hum of insects, the booming of ice, the crowing of cocks in the morning, and the barking of dogs in the night, which indicates her sound state. God's voice is but a clear bell sound. I drink in a wonderful health, a cordial, in sound. The effect of the slightest tinkling in the horizon measures my own soundness. ”

“ The pleasure we experience from music, is, like that from viewing a landscape, derived from various sources; as first from the excitement of the auditory nerve into certain quantities of action, when there exists any accumulation of sensorial power. 2. When the auditory nerve is exerted in such successive actions as relieve each other, like stretching or yawning, as described in Botanic Garden, Vol. II, Interlude the third, these successions of sound are termed melody, and their combinations harmony. 3. From the repetition of sounds at certain intervals of time ”