Smells and Bells

Rasmussen's description of the "Public Soundscape" really brought the noisy atmosphere of Jakarta to life and clearly portrayed the contrast between the lifestyle in Indonesia and the lifestyle of those living in rural America. She describes the buildings themselves as being porous, inviting in all of the sounds from outdoors into the private lives of people in their homes. The concept of being willingly to mix the noise of daily life is completely polar to the Western concept of noise, which is, to avoid it even at high costs. She gave a particularly heart-warming description, noting that the culture of sharing your personal sounds at a high volume: songs, boomboxes, radios, conversation, is a way of showing your inclusivity of everyone. It allows for a feeling of community of unity when everyone is sharing in the same sensory experience. I myself, grew up in in the middle of the woods. We couldn't even see our closest neighbors from our window and the only sounds ...

Professor Kirkpatrick’s lecture brought our whole experience of learning about each sense full circle. After considering each of them individually, and their vital biological purpose for our survival, it is quite baffling to realize that we simply would be “blobs that do nothing” if we were completely senseless. As I was sitting doing my homework and considering the possibility of being absolutely nothing, I began to feel rather lethargic and useless, "perhaps", I thought, "I feel this way because I have only been using my vision, one sense, for the past four hours. It seems that, as humans have been gifted with so many senses, that being human to our full capacity must require the use of all our senses, as much as possible throughout every activity. If this is true, than I have often been failing to be a human to my full capacity." I started to hear a raucous in the next room and the smell of popcorn which both drew me in, so went to investigate, only to find a pi...

Every human begins his or her life immersed in the sound of his or her mother’s heart beat. Diane Ackerman describes in great detail, the significance of this experience, in her chapter on hearing. Iambic pentameter (mostly found in poetry) mirrors the heart beat and therefore can give a third dimensionality to the words, which have already been so artfully constructed. The familiar beat gives us the feeling of comfort and ease, which allows the words to seep through us and make the experience of a poem more pleasurable. It seems clear to me, that our initial nine-month encounter with the world, living inside of a constant rhythm, bestowed a love within each of us, for all many forms of rhythm.   We see it in the music we listen to every day, regardless of the genre, its hard to find music without a rhythm.   We can find rhythm incorporated in chanting, singing, praying and dancing, performed by people in completely different cultures with totally different sounds all ove...