Sound Within Sound: Opening Our Ears to the Twentieth Century

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Main article: Speed of sound U.S. Navy F/A-18 approaching the speed of sound. The white halo is formed by condensed water droplets thought to result from a drop in air pressure around the aircraft (see Prandtl–Glauert singularity). [12]

Onset clusters: These are consonant clusters that occur at the beginning of a syllable. Certain combinations are allowed in English, such as "pr" in "prey" and "tr" in "tree". However, others are not permitted, like "tl" or "zb". Kate Molleson is a distinguished teacher, journalist and broadcaster whose New Music Show on Radio 3 is a crucial component of that station’s gradual and, some may say, long overdue policy of embracing a more inclusive, global concept of what could be termed modern classical music. Think jazz, electronic music, improvisational music, folk, classical, experimental, noise, and combinations thereof. Molleson is a passionate advocate for this more expansive definition of classical music and, as this important and engrossing book establishes, she is particularly engaged in extolling the work and telling the stories of the many composers from around the world whose music has been side-lined, undervalued and ommitted from the mainstream histories. Of the ten composers whose work is discussed here, all were born in the first four decades of the twentieth century and seven are no longer with us. Because their work was adventurous, rule-breaking, often extreme and because they weren’t either white, male, privileged, European, American or born in the right place at the right time, they have never been fully accepted as part of the mainstream narrative of contemporary classical music. As such, this is not only an important book but an ear-opener, a revelation and a portal to another world. A world in which music has an anarchic, organic quality that defies categorization, where music has no boundaries and restrictions, stylistically and geographically, both in form and execution, where innovation and complexity and rigorous musical disciplines work together to stretch and embellish our understanding of what music can be. Applications of acoustics are found in almost all aspects of modern society, subdisciplines include aeroacoustics, audio signal processing, architectural acoustics, bioacoustics, electro-acoustics, environmental noise, musical acoustics, noise control, psychoacoustics, speech, ultrasound, underwater acoustics, and vibration. [3] DefinitionMolleson has employed her expert knowledge and refined perspective in selecting which ten artists to include in what, in less discerning hands, could have been an unwieldy, daunting tome. She has chosen ‘ten beautifully messy, confounding, brave, outrageous, original and charismatic composers’. Each one of these elegantly written biographical essays describes a remarkable, singular, creative life, strewn with political, social and domestic obstacles. They describe a fierce commitment to their art, a refusal to compromise and a determination to write whatever music they pleased. They are wonderful characters, if apparently not all easy people to get along with. This was later proven wrong and the French mathematician Laplace corrected the formula by deducing that the phenomenon of sound travelling is not isothermal, as believed by Newton, but adiabatic. He added another factor to the equation— gamma—and multiplied

Sound waves are often simplified to a description in terms of sinusoidal plane waves, which are characterized by these generic properties: I can think of no better way to end than to quote from Molleson’s introduction, an introduction that will surely persuade you to read the book if I haven’t managed to: ‘These composers aren’t alternatives to any others, because the word ‘alternative’ suggests an incontrovertible core. They seek to replace nobody, but they deserve to be heard. And this is only the beginning. There are hundreds of others I could have written about. Seek them out, too, just as soon as you’ve finished reading.’ For instance, vowel combinations like /iu/ and /ai/ occur in words such as 'view' and 'my', while certain consonant clusters are found at the beginning of words like 'train' and 'splendid'.2. Prevent ambiguity: Phonotactic constraints help to avoid confusion and maintain clear word boundaries, ensuring that speech is not misinterpreted by listeners. This is particularly crucial in English, as the language has a large number of homophones. 3. Foreign word adaptation: Phonotactic rules influence the way loanwords are adapted into English, as native speakers tend to modify unfamiliar sound sequences to match those found in their own language. Original (Foreign) WordPhysics Experiment using two tuning forks oscillating usually at the same frequency. One of the forks is being hit with a rubberized mallet. Although only the first tuning fork has been hit, the second fork is visibly excited due to the oscillation caused by the periodic change in the pressure and density of the air by hitting the other fork, creating an acoustic resonance between the forks. However, if we place a piece of metal on a prong, we see that the effect dampens, and the excitations become less and less pronounced as resonance is not achieved as effectively. It introduces us to thrilling dreamers from the last century who believed that music could fundamentally – and disruptively – recalibrate our lives. In Mexico, we meet Julián Carrillo, the youngest of an indigenous family of 19, who becomes a composer obsessed with the possibilities of microscopic intervals between tones (in layperson’s terms, the many tiny gradations of sound between two notes on a keyboard). The viscosity of the medium. Medium viscosity determines the rate at which sound is attenuated. For many media, such as air or water, attenuation due to viscosity is negligible. Although there are many complexities relating to the transmission of sounds, at the point of reception (i.e. the ears), sound is readily dividable into two simple elements: pressure and time. These fundamental elements form the basis of all sound waves. They can be used to describe, in absolute terms, every sound we hear. Consonant clusters: These multi-consonant patterns can occur at the onset, nucleus, or coda positions in a syllable.

Injustice plays a part in many tales, including the life of Ruth Crawford Seeger, mother of the acclaimed folk musician and singer-songwriter Peggy, with whom Molleson spends a fascinating, revelatory day. The first woman to be awarded a Guggenheim fellowship for her work and an innovative modernist composer, Crawford Seeger’s talents were constantly disregarded by her husband, who was formerly her teacher. “He wasn’t nearly as good as she was,” Peggy says, bluntly. As the human ear can detect sounds with a wide range of amplitudes, sound pressure is often measured as a level on a logarithmic decibel scale. The sound pressure level (SPL) or L p is defined as Sound pressure is the difference, in a given medium, between average local pressure and the pressure in the sound wave. A square of this difference (i.e., a square of the deviation from the equilibrium pressure) is usually averaged over time and/or space, and a square root of this average provides a root mean square (RMS) value. For example, 1 Pa RMS sound pressure (94 dBSPL) in atmospheric air implies that the actual pressure in the sound wave oscillates between (1 atm − 2 {\displaystyle -{\sqrt {2}}} Pa) and (1 atm + 2 {\displaystyle +{\sqrt {2}}} Pa), that is between 101323.6 and 101326.4 Pa. Sound can propagate through a medium such as air, water and solids as longitudinal waves and also as a transverse wave in solids. The sound waves are generated by a sound source, such as the vibrating diaphragm of a stereo speaker. The sound source creates vibrations in the surrounding medium. As the source continues to vibrate the medium, the vibrations propagate away from the source at the speed of sound, thus forming the sound wave. At a fixed distance from the source, the pressure, velocity, and displacement of the medium vary in time. At an instant in time, the pressure, velocity, and displacement vary in space. The particles of the medium do not travel with the sound wave. This is intuitively obvious for a solid, and the same is true for liquids and gases (that is, the vibrations of particles in the gas or liquid transport the vibrations, while the average position of the particles over time does not change). During propagation, waves can be reflected, refracted, or attenuated by the medium. [5] Sound is transmitted through gases, plasma, and liquids as longitudinal waves, also called compression waves. It requires a medium to propagate. Through solids, however, it can be transmitted as both longitudinal waves and transverse waves. Longitudinal sound waves are waves of alternating pressure deviations from the equilibrium pressure, causing local regions of compression and rarefaction, while transverse waves (in solids) are waves of alternating shear stress at right angle to the direction of propagation.Coda clusters: Coda clusters are consonant sequences found at the end of a syllable. Some familiar coda clusters include "st" in "lust" or "ft" in "loft". As with onset clusters, certain combinations are not allowed, like "bd" or "gt". Sound that is perceptible by humans has frequencies from about 20Hz to 20,000Hz. In air at standard temperature and pressure, the corresponding wavelengths of sound waves range from 17m (56ft) to 17mm (0.67in). Sometimes speed and direction are combined as a velocity vector; wave number and direction are combined as a wave vector. Consonant-vowel (CV) pattern: This pattern begins with a consonant followed by a vowel, creating many different phonotactic combinations. This is but the sketchiest outline of oustanding lives that Molleson brings to the fore so vividly. Not all of the music that she talks about is easily available to listen to but there is a fairly decent range of material on Spotify to accompany the reading and give you some idea of what these remarkable characters achieved. She portrays a world of exceptional compositional talent that, had it been given rightful prominence, would have enriched and expanded the domain of modern classical music beyond measure. And I would assume that it’s by no means just an historical problem although thankfully, these days, we have scholars and broadcasters like Molleson to continue the work of redressing the balance. Moved more to centre-stage instead of consigned to the margins, who knows what amazing music might develop? Radio Three should give her her own weekly show in which to feature the lives and work of these marginalised and fascinating composers. It might not always make for easy listening but, as she so clearly argues, their story and their work deserve to be heard and integrated into a long-overdue revisionist appraisal of the music of our time. When sound is moving through a medium that does not have constant physical properties, it may be refracted (either dispersed or focused). [5] Spherical compression (longitudinal) waves