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Re: [microsound] New York Times: Cell Sounds



not to labour the point but usually you assume if a frequency is given it would be that of the fundamental, don't you? I mean is there anything in nature capable of producing a pure sinusoid? I think it is easier to give an idea of perceived pitch than it is to describe, perhaps, the formant of the sound...

all things being considered, I'd actually like to hear those cells... that's true microsound for you ;)



On 15 Dec 2004, at 17:46, John Hopkins wrote:

You'll want to revise your definition, as a guitar,
a trumpet, your voice, and my computer can all make
sound at a 1000Hz frequency.

yup, not a single 1000 Hz 'note' though, that's what I meant... when describing a sound by giving a single Hz frequency, it actually doesn't describe much at all, except a single sinusoidal pressure wave. the voice and the trumpet contains an incredible layered mix of frequencies that makes it a 'voice' and not a 1000 Hz sound... the computer comes closer to having a 'pure' 1000 Hz sound, though the 'system noize' adds all sorts of nice goodies to enrich the lives of people seeking to improve the S/N ratio.


I think the practice of describing a cell as "emitting a 1000 Hz sound ... that is beautiful" is a bizarre contrast of scientific reductionism and a lack of poetic imagination.

(just the banal limitations of a typically reductive scientific system for describing the world around us...)

In the end, I'd rather hear the recording, made with a goat-hair nano-mike, pressed on vinyl on a wax-paper-and-cup speaker system....

cheers
jh



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