Impact of Sound

The Bells of Notre Dame

by Emma Laurence

The bells of Notre Dame do more than ring out. They are always alive, responding to life around them. “It’s a physical fact that these bells are actually vibrating all the time; it’s like a spirit that’s living inside of Notre Dame,” sound artist Bill Fontana told The Art Newspaper.

How does he know? After the 2019 fire, Fontana recorded harmonic pitches that the metal creates when not in motion. Check out this clip from his sonic installation, Silent Echoes: Notre-Dame (2 min):

Fontana recorded and mixed the “still sound” of the 10 bells and adjusted the levels to human hearing. He described the sound of the bells as acting like acoustic mirrors: 

“They’re reacting to life around Notre Dame. The slow and prominent hum of the massive bells rings in the foreground, and ambient sounds of the surrounding area flitter in the background — the noise of construction in the cathedral, a musician’s melody from the street below, birds singing in the bell tower.”

That’s a startling discovery. Are we also acoustic mirrors that react to ambient sounds, barely aware of the vibrational impact?  

An example. If my husband turns on the nightly news, he keeps the volume low. He’s very considerate of my sensitivity to the sound of reporters. Their cadence (let alone the content) makes my skin crawl, and I don’t want to be the effect or the reflection of that frequency.

Gratefully, we humans have more choice than bells. The words we speak and emotional tenor we carry can uplift our environment, if we’re mindful of our impact.

At the deepest level, our unique vibration identifies us. When we’re conscious of our signature sound, we’re truer to ourselves and to the sounds we express.

That is living as music.

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Find Your Rhythm. Harmonize with your heart.

Instrument made of ice (an ice horn) being played by a musician in a parka
Impact of Sound

Ice Music

by Emma Laurence

Terje Isungset is a pioneer and inventor of ice music. He creates his instruments—harps, drums, percussion, horns, and the iceophone (like a xylophone)—from blocks of harvested natural ice. He’s released 14 solo albums through his independent Norwegian record company and has toured internationally giving concerts with his Ice Quartet. Imagine being a roadie on that gig!

This ice concert, performed in the Arctic, was created in conjunction with Greenpeace to highlight the beauty of our oceans. It’s unlike anything you’ve heard: 

Instruments are crafted out of artic drift ice, sourced from and then returned to the sea. Glacial ice can be a thousand or a hundred thousand years old. Instrument-makers and musicians respect this ancient ice and that it has a sound of its own. 

American Ice sculptor Bill Covitz says ice vibrates the longest at -20 degrees, the best temperature for an ice concert. [See The Sound of Ice: Behind the Scenes Making Ocean Memories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEGgHf7G_-A&t=21s]

What can we learn about the collaboration of nature and human creativity from these artists?

Terje speaks of treating nature with respect and gentleness, just like the ice instruments, so it doesn’t break.

Ice cellist Ashild Brunvoll shares how nature has its own language. Ice instruments bring the sound of nature to human language, so people can understand. Nature gives us so much more than we can see.

As we enjoy a new year, some of us skiing on snow or making snow sculptures, we can pay attention to nature and connect in a deeper way. Perhaps we’ll even awaken to the music of ice.

That is living as music.

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Find Your Rhythm. Harmonize with your heart.

Split screen of jazz keyboardist and jazz drummer demonstrating call and response.
Impact of Sound

Call and Response

by Emma Laurence

Call and response is a form of musical dialogue where one instrument plays or sings a short phrase and another responds, creating a musical conversation. The answer may repeat or complement the call. Either way, it’s often a playful or soulful style of communication.

Check out this jazz example. Reginald Thomas (piano) and Alvin Atkinson (drums) demonstrate jazz style call and response with Duke Ellington’s “Perdido.” You won’t believe what the drummer can do!

Call and response began as a vocal technique with deep roots across cultures worldwide. Its ancient origins in building community span tribal, religious, and folk traditions. Its global breadth is stunning: West African ceremony, Native American ritual, Caribbean calypso, Cantonese opera, Celtic choral arrangements, Islamic Adhan*, and even the cultural welcoming protocol of the New Zealand Maori.

We may be most familiar with call and response in jazz, gospel, blues, or pop music. Think of B.B. King’s The Thrill is Gone when the guitar responds to his voice with a mournful melody. Or Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline where the audience can’t help but respond with bum, bum, bum.

Call and response is profoundly and quintessentially human. Why?

I believe we all, at some point in our lives, call out. We may call for help in a moment of deep despair, or call out from the rooftops in joyful sharing of great news. Either way, we want to be answered. It’s why crisis centers and hotlines exist, why we gather in celebration at milestone events, and why ghosting is such a devastating experience. No one wants to be ignored.

In daily life, we call out through our goals, our dreams, and our conversations with others. Answers come in the form of life experiences and personal interactions. We may not always like the responses we get. But we can be more aware of what we’re calling out for and, maybe more importantly, how we can answer the calls of others.

That is living as music.

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*Adhan is the Muslim call to prayer. Listeners mostly respond by saying the same words.

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Find Your Rhythm. Harmonize with your heart.

Close up of the sun with an audio bar across showing that the sun sings, makes sound.
Impact of Sound

The Sun Sings

by Emma Laurence

Are you as surprised as I am to learn that the sun “sings”? I know scientific instruments detect and monitor sounds in the universe all the time. Yet, I never thought of the sun having sound. 

Through a process called data sonification, heliophysicists use NASA satellites like audio recorders to listen to the sun’s electromagnetics. It took NASA 300 hours to make this 1-minute raw audio. Their telescope took video every 12 seconds of invisible UV light. 

Take a listen and see if you find resonance here, as the sun sings:

A simple sound can give us a way to probe inside our life-giving star and better understand its deeper layers. How cool is that?

For me, when the human world becomes too chaotic, I try to understand deeper layers, too. I work at expanding my heart, and I seek a bigger picture. I remember that the sun shines the next morning despite the human drama playing out on earth. 

And I listen for a sound to uplift me—rain on the roof, my dearest friend’s voice or my cat’s purr, a beautiful singer. Learning that the sun creates music as it shines lifts me up with light and sound. 

I also discovered recently a kind of sunrise within me each morning, too. On any given day, the quality of light inside may be diffuse or bright, depending on what I dreamt the night before, how my body feels that morning, or what emotions show up. Like internal weather.

If we greet the day by opening to that light, that sound— from an outer or inner sun— will we gain in peace and confidence? Maybe our personal world would brighten, no matter what surrounds us.

Even seeking that place is living as music.

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Find Your Rhythm. Harmonize with your heart.