Touch, Sound, and transformation

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A Natural History of the Senses has helped me see the close relationship between touch and hearing. I’ve long been aware of the connection between smell and taste, but I never thought about how interconnected touch and hearing are. Hearing is only possible because of touch. Ackerman describes the mechanics of hearing, how the sound vibrations stimulate just the right little hairs to make the sounds our brain has come used to giving meaning.

I love thinking about how sound is almost like its own kind of touch. Sounds are just a specific, sort of, manipulation of the air around us. I remember first learning about sound waves on a particularly memorable episode of Magic School Bus. I’ve added here a clip from the episode in which they learn about sound waves and get to see them move through the air.

Thinking about how much sound is like touch, makes me wonder about the role of sound and hearing in religious ritual. I can think of powerful examples of touch being used in a religious context from stories of Jesus healing with his touch to invoking the Holy Spirit with the laying on of hands, and I wonder if sound actually serves a kind of similar function. Thinking about the sound of the singing bowl in some Buddhist traditions or the group recitation of Quran passages, maybe these sounds are supposed to change or transform us the same way hands are supposed to heal. Maybe because the sound waves are actually touching us, moving our little hairs, they’re touching us, somehow, more spiritually too.

Comments

  1. Jonathan Brumberg-KrausFebruary 5, 2018 at 9:12 AM

    Love the clip from Magic School Bus. Sound in this light is so _material_. Yes, like you say, you can touch it, and it can touch you!

    ReplyDelete

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