Furthering on the theme of this weeks lecture of sound, I’ve been thinking about what sounds I love and what sounds I hate.

I can’t think of any sounds I particularly love but I’ve read some articles on autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) which is basically when a sound has such an intensely pleasurable effect.  The sound that affects you can vary from person to person and often results in a tingling sensation which usually starts on the scalp and can move into the neck and even the rest of the body– it has even been referred to as similar to an orgasm.  There hasn’t been too much scientific research surrounding ASMR yet but the concept is enticingly interesting and is worth a Google.

But sounds I hate?  As a little girl I was always a heavy sleeper, but one thing that could wake me from my slumber was the incessant sound of a cricket chirping.  It must have been at the right (or wrong) frequency that just really affected me.  I absolutely hated it.  It’s funny how sounds can provoke memories because every time I hear a cricket chirping, it reminds me of how my Dad used to deal with the cricket issue.  So my Dad is not an animal lover as such, but he’s extremely humane.  Personally, I would have just killed the cricket keeping me awake but my Dad used to fill up buckets with soapy water and go and throw the solution over the area the noise was coming from.  The crickets would then be too slippery to chirp– thus a good nights sleep was had by all.

These days it seems to be the opposite.  Since I’ve moved to Melbourne, the sounds of trams running late at night provides a sort of relaxation for me.  I didn’t realise this until I travelled back home to visit my family and I was laying awake at night wondering why it was so quiet and hoping a tram would drive past and whisk me off into dream land.

Sound does really effect you but it’s also a matter of what you get used to.  Sometimes I have the mental capacity to deal with heavy metal and other times it stresses me out so much.  I think moods and hormone cycles also play a role in the way sound is interpreted.  However, we will see as the course goes on.