Bass: Infrasound, Dread & The Uncanny

Capper

Member
Posting this hear even if should may be in "Music". I have a lifelong obsession with bass. I played bass intruments (tuba & bass guitar) and whilst love many genres of music, I am fascinated by those with a major bass component - reggae, jungle and now dubstep.

So I want to write an article about the love of my life and in doing so I've come across some weird stuff about infrasonics & the uncanny.

As these thoughts take shape in my brain, which other pieces of writing have you encountered that talk about BASS. Low frequencies - that's what we're after...
 

Capper

Member
Just my personal pleasure at the moment. If one of the local music zines is interested, I might pitch it to them. Otherwise it'll end up on a blog somewhere.

But it's not academic, if that's what you mean.
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
I've come across some weird stuff about infrasonics & the uncanny..


if you find out more about this bit:

"But in a controlled experiment in which infrasound was pumped into a concert hall, UK scientists found they could instil strange feelings in the audience at will.

These included an extreme sense of sorrow, coldness, anxiety and even shivers down the spine"

post it up here.
 

Troy

31 Seconds
The Ultimate Bass Animal

It has been discovered that elephants can communicate over long distances by producing and receiving low frequency infrasound, a sub-sonic rumbling which can travel through the ground farther than sound travels in the air. This can be felt by the sensitive skin of an elephant's feet and trunk, which pick up the resonant vibrations in much the same way as the flat skin on the head of a drum. To listen attentively, the whole herd will lift one foreleg from the ground, and face the source of the sound, or often lay their trunks on the ground - the lifting presumably increases the ground contact and sensitivity of the remaining legs. This ability is thought to also aid their navigation by utilising external sources of infrasound. Discovery of this new aspect of elephant social communication and perception is due to breakthroughs in audio technology, which can pick up frequencies outside the range of the human ear. Pioneering research in elephant infrasound communication was done by Katy Payne of the Elephant Listening Project,[9] and is detailed in her book Silent Thunder. Though this research is still in its infancy, it is helping to solve many prior mysteries such as how elephants can find distant potential mates, and how social groups are able to coordinate their movements over an extensive territory range.
 

mms

sometimes
It has been discovered that elephants can communicate over long distances by producing and receiving low frequency infrasound, a sub-sonic rumbling which can travel through the ground farther than sound travels in the air. This can be felt by the sensitive skin of an elephant's feet and trunk, which pick up the resonant vibrations in much the same way as the flat skin on the head of a drum. To listen attentively, the whole herd will lift one foreleg from the ground, and face the source of the sound, or often lay their trunks on the ground - the lifting presumably increases the ground contact and sensitivity of the remaining legs. This ability is thought to also aid their navigation by utilising external sources of infrasound. Discovery of this new aspect of elephant social communication and perception is due to breakthroughs in audio technology, which can pick up frequencies outside the range of the human ear. Pioneering research in elephant infrasound communication was done by Katy Payne of the Elephant Listening Project,[9] and is detailed in her book Silent Thunder. Though this research is still in its infancy, it is helping to solve many prior mysteries such as how elephants can find distant potential mates, and how social groups are able to coordinate their movements over an extensive territory range.

true, fish do the same and create defenses thru it.

i've taken place is a haunted house experiment btw..

http://www.haque.co.uk/haunt.php

that writing in the centre of the page is mine apart from the one on the right.

you might find that interesting.


best off starting here as anywhere else still.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound

i think the idea that bass can effect general 'feelings of wellbeing' is a pretty interesting thing, actually achieving a physical sense of dread through sound.
 
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nomos

Administrator
the haque project looks really interesting marcus.

"Subsonic Test Levitates Carpet"
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Capper

Member
Thanks for all this people. At present there are a several strands to my thinking:

1. Dread

i. Infrasound is associated with catastrophic natural phenomena - earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tsunami.

ii. Humans have associated these phenomena with the divine - "Acts of God".

iii. On one level, the sense of dread infrasound produces is related to an evoluntary response to natural catastrophies. An early warning system.

iv. On another, when human beings have wanted to represent the divine, the sacred buildings they construct replicate infrasound to generate that sense of dread & awe. Medieval cathedrals bathe their congregations in infrasound generated by pipe organs and choirs.

v. But infrasound-generating buildings are also created by accident. These are haunted houses. Natural infrasound generating spaces (caves, glades) are also said to be haunted and/or enchanted.

vi. Sound systems allow the production of infrasound. Dub-like musics especially trigger our buried infrasound response. They are artificial "sonic cathedrals", "haunted dancehalls" & psychoseimological events.

2. Womb

i. Slightly higher bass frequencies are associated with the mother's heart beat in the womb (anyone know what frequency range the foetus experiences?).

ii. The blunted, warm sounds in dub bass are maternal. They are soothe. A return to the womb.

iii. Bass music is rarely purely one frequency but a range of frequencies from infrasound to womb-like. Hence the contrary triggers of dub - you feel soothed & on-edge at the same time.
 

tryptych

waiting for a time
if you find out more about this bit:

"But in a controlled experiment in which infrasound was pumped into a concert hall, UK scientists found they could instil strange feelings in the audience at will.

These included an extreme sense of sorrow, coldness, anxiety and even shivers down the spine"

post it up here.


I think I went to something like this a few years back on the South Bank in London - huge metal pipe with a bass cone attached at one end, which produced loads of infrasound. The audience were all given questionaires to report any changes in mood etc during the experience...


i. Infrasound is associated with catastrophic natural phenomena - earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tsunami.

ii. Humans have associated these phenomena with the divine - "Acts of God".

iii. On one level, the sense of dread infrasound produces is related to an evoluntary response to natural catastrophies. An early warning system.

iv. On another, when human beings have wanted to represent the divine, the sacred buildings they construct replicate infrasound to generate that sense of dread & awe. Medieval cathedrals bathe their congregations in infrasound generated by pipe organs and choirs.

Isn't there also the fact that certain kinds of sound can produce altered states of consciousness through physiological effects, which would procduce a sense of awe/the divine without reference to natural catastrophe?

Which I think is what the experiments that Matt was asking about were trying to show...

There's some caves in Ireland or Scotland somewhere, that were supposed to be sculpted so that drumming in the caves set up certain resonances that produced these altered states... in the same way that fasting, psychoactive plants etc have been used in other cultures.
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
Isn't there also the fact that certain kinds of sound can produce altered states of consciousness through physiological effects, which would procduce a sense of awe/the divine without reference to natural catastrophe?

Which I think is what the experiments that Matt was asking about were trying to show...
that's the ticket (the infrasonic experiment is useful too)- by doing such an experiment in a church or a 'haunted house' you are guaranteeing your results- i wanted info from a 'neutral' environment
 

Capper

Member
matt b >

by doing such an experiment in a church or a 'haunted house' you are guaranteeing your results- i wanted info from a 'neutral' environment

The Purcell Room experiment took place in a concert hall. What was interesting about it was the difference in repsonses between the sessions with infrasound and the sessions with just "placebo" music.
 

MATT MAson

BROADSIDE
I've been looking at unexplained sounds, I'm currently writing a book how subcultures and youth movements have had profound effects on society - using this whole area as a metaphor for the power of sound to change things. I didn't know about some of this stuff - fascinating.

Some interesting stuff here, although I expect this stuff has more to do with aircraft engines

http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa031599.htm

I love the idea of sound as a weapon - especially as 1930s style Monty Python type weapons like these:

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/ear/ear.htm

And this low level hum that has been plaguing the world has intrigued me for sometime. Sound likes a mass outbreak of tinnitus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taos_Hum
 

alo

Well-known member
PHP:
I love the idea of sound as a weapon -

I remember reading somewhere once that the British army once tested infrasound or ultrabass or whatever on protesting crowds in Northern Ireland. Apprently because a certain level of it can induce nausea and sickness ie; pretty hard to protest when your throwing up. What a dark image.
 
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