• Question: Do you belive there is such thing as the sound of silence?

    Asked by mrsrichards to Andrew, Daniel, Hayley, Natalia, Peta on 24 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Daniel Scully

      Daniel Scully answered on 17 Nov 2011:

      Silence is usually defined as the lack of sound, so technically no.

      But sounds are just movements of air molecules, so even if there’s nothing around making a sound, your ears are probably always detecting some movement in the air…

    • Photo: Andrew Cairns

      Andrew Cairns answered on 17 Nov 2011:

      I love sounds when nothing is going on – the sound of rain on the window, or wind rushing around you when you’re at the top of a mountain. I guess things are sounds, but not in the same way as a motor running or factories in the distance!

    • Photo: Natalia Parzyk

      Natalia Parzyk answered on 18 Nov 2011:

      sound of silence.. in fact there is a lot of sounds which humans can’t hear, but for example bats can hear, so maybe that’s relative, for us it’s silence, for them lots going on

    • Photo: Hayley Smith

      Hayley Smith answered on 18 Nov 2011:

      That’s a really good question – there was a great piece of music composed called 4’33” in which no instruments are played at all, the score is completely silent. It’s been recorded and re-mixed a few times, but it’s still the same, no instruments are played at all… here’s some info on it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3
      I think this is a really interesting idea.

      I think it’s great to be in a place where you think you can hear nothing and then you listen harder and harder and you can begin to pick more things out.

      As the air is always moving there will always be some vibrations detected by your ear (I don’t know how sensitive the human ear is though to sound levels?) but I do know there are certain frequencies we can’t hear – so like Natalia suggests – who know’s what sounds we’re missing out on, even when we think it’s pretty silent?!

    • Photo: Peta Foster

      Peta Foster answered on 24 Nov 2011:

      It’s a song isn’t it? 🙂 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hUy9ePyo6Q

      I guess the sound of silence is basically no sound at all.. which if you have ever experienced i think is pretty strange. To be honest i like a bit of noise, something in the background feels normal. Total silence feels slightly erie like something is about to happen… it would in a movie 😉

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