STFU – An Experiment

As I’ve said many times before I write on the train on the way in and there’s a lot of noise. There are the office gossipers, the coffers, the gum chewers, the ipod blasters and of course the guy who listens to his mobile phone through his speakers.

On of my life’s banes also is the amount of notices we get all the time. Even after leaving the train, every day, I get announcements. Announcements about how all lines on the tube are running, ones about when the tube is approaching, ones about where the next tube is going, then one from the driver that we are about to leave and to mind the lines, then one three minutes later about what stop I have arrived at and what tube line I am travelling on (for fuck’s sake) then a beep while the doors close and two minutes later what the next station will be then one saying what station it is.

Then when I get past all the stations and I get to work, it’s a beep out of the tube station, all the trains and traffic noise, a beep into work, a lift pings to let me know it’s there then tells me whether it is going up or down then that it’s closing its doors and then what floor I’m on and then whether it is going up or down and then when it is closing its doors. It’s too much fucking noise and something that people don’t complain about, like road signs or safety instructions.

I have some good headphones that go right inside my ears and they block out a lot of sound, but you can still hear the background. I’d like to get some of those proper noise-cancelling ones but I think if I had £200 I’d probably spend it on a new laptop instead.

I tend to mask the noise out with music and I can write ok listening to songs, which I pick according to how I’m feeling, because the sound fits right into that and everything comes out better.

Lately I discovered a market in ambient noise and it’s really interesting. This site here has a few and it’s funny the affect sound has on our moods. There is one sound in particular that I love and it’s the one of the air conditioning unit. I don’t want to influence you by saying what it reminds me of, but I find this more soothing than any of your new age bullshit babbling brook (move over Dylan Thomas) or stormy raincloud mp3s.

Of course, I do like the sound of rain and distant thunder and treefrogs and that, but if it’s an mp3 and a file that I can carry around with me, then for some reason I’d choose the noise of the a/c.

I’m listening to a file of brown noise at the moment. It’s like white noise but a little bit dirty.

OK, joke aside, you have white noise, which is every frequency of the audible scale at the same volume. It sounds a little like static, but because it’s every frequency, it drowns out every noise, or cancels it. Or something, but after it has been on, you forget the noise like a blind spot and everything seems quiet. No, I don’t know how it works either.

Trouble is, white noise is a little tinny and high-pitched. Pink noise is white noise with the volume down a notch for every time the frequency goes up, so it’s way down for the high frequencies.

Brown noise, or red noise, is the frequency down two notches (or decibels) for every frequency (or note, although they are not technically spread out as wide as notes in a music scale) as they go up. So it’s kind of like a warm static sound that to me sounds like the generator or a constant wave or a swimming pool generator.

Today for the first time I have been listening to it for half an hour, and I still am right now as I write this and I do feel calmer and more relaxed. It’s not going to make the Weekend Song or anything, but I like it.

Anyway, listen to the a/c noise and tell me if it’s just me.