real world columns: funny noises

I remember a lesson at school about pollution. As well as the obvious types of pollution the teacher also mentioned ‘noise pollution’. In those distant, low-tech days the idea of noise pollution was limited to things like jet aircraft going overhead and traffic noise. In today’s world, the explosion in personal technology and the ability of this technology to make all sorts of silly noises means that public places are filled with clouds of gadgets beeping and buzzing.

The first inkling of this problem came with digital watches in the 70s (remember those big, chunky things with one button and a red LED readout?). Well, one of the limited features they offered was a ‘beep on the hour’ function. In the quiet of the cinema or the school assembly when the hour came, a mini cacophony would sound, spread out around the hour as every watch was set to a slightly different time.

The modern day equivalent of this distracting sound is the mobile phone. A sound as loud and as annoying as an alarm-clock. Especially to commuters woken from a snooze on the train or to audiences of classical music concerts. No wonder they have been banned in certain venues in New York.

Is it possible to list the attributes that make a noise annoying? Well, for starters they are annoying if they occur in a quiet context. Consider going out into the countryside with a squeaky walking shoe, or a context like a crowded train where you want to cut off from the busy world but are constantly drawn to it by mobile phones ringing. Another example is my new oven. A silver thing with knobs in all the right places (well almost) but the oven contains a fan that carries on whirring until it has all cooled down. The result of this is that you cook a pie, take it out and serve it and during the entire meal the fan is buzzing away. Then by the time you get to the after dinner mints the fan has cooled everything down enough and it shuts off. A cooker that is practically designed to make noise only for the duration of the meal is has just cooked!

Noises are more annoying if they are intermittent. Continuous noises are easy to screen out and are less distracting. Noises that occur at random intervals always impinge upon our consciousness more. We can work through buzzing tube lighting, moaning air-conditioning units but if we hear the occasional tings from the heating system or the random hissing of escaping gas from an almost sealed coffee flask it is a continual distraction.

A noise that starts suddenly can give us a shock with the inevitable result of annoyance. How a noise starts is called the ‘attack’. If it starts suddenly it can be shocking, if it builds up slowly the effect can be less startling. Sound designers sometimes take this into account and I know of one manufacturer whose telephone makes a gentle ‘organic’ sounding ringing noise which starts very softly and gradually increases in volume. It certainly doesn’t shock the listener, but it does cause great confusion. The psychological effect is not, ‘Oh. The telephone’s ringing but not loud enough to scare me’ but instead it is: ‘Oh gosh. What’s that strange noise? Oh no, it’s getting closer. Is it aliens? What is it? It’s almost here… Oh it’s only the telephone!’

The owner of a similar telephone with a ‘louder and louder’ ring-tone told me that his phone sounded similar to an ambulance siren and whenever someone rang up the beeps would start and get louder and louder and the whole family would immediately rush to the window with the kids to watch for the passing ambulance.

Another example to illustrate that difficult to identify sounds are annoying is fridge noise. A colleague has a fridge in the same room that he and his partner eat in, so they chose a special silent model. Silent? Almost. It was quite literally as quiet as a mouse. It produced almost imperceptible swishes and clicks sounding exactly like a mouse nesting behind the fridge. Every time it started up the owners’ first reaction was to sit quietly, straining their ears for the noises of a mouse in the kitchen. Even after a year or so it was still catching them out!

A key factor in the frustration of sounds is if you have no ability to control the sound. The worst offenders are bits of technology that make a lot of noise for a long period of time and that cannot be stopped from making the noise. Sounds stupid doesn’t it? But that is exactly what today’s compact 35mm cameras do. When you take the last shot they realize that there is no film left and the motor cuts in to rewind the film. What they don’t realize is that you are in the church taking a picture of your friend’s daughter’s christening and that the vicar is giving you a particularly hard stare as you try and sit on the camera to muffle the whining sounds.

Does this idea of every gadget making a noise have any advantages? The only one I can think of was the story of the young boy losing his new digital watch while playing football. The football field was so big and grassy that a search by eye would have been impossible. But this watch had an in-built alarm set to go off at 7:30 in the morning. So, early in the morning he and his family and mates spread themselves out across the field and listened and when the alarm sounded they quickly pinpointed and found his watch.