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.