Trevor Cox

The Sound Book

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“A lucid and passionate case for a more mindful way of listening to and engaging with musical, natural, and manmade sounds.” —New York Times

In this tour of the world’s most unexpected sounds, Trevor Cox—the “David Attenborough of the acoustic realm” (Observer)—discovers the world’s longest echo in a hidden oil cavern in Scotland, unlocks the secret of singing sand dunes in California, and alerts us to the aural gems that exist everywhere in between. Using the world’s most amazing acoustic phenomena to reveal how sound works in everyday life, The Sound Book inspires us to become better listeners in a world dominated by the visual and to open our ears to the glorious cacophony all around us.
This book is currently unavailable
410 printed pages
Original publication
2014
Publication year
2014
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Quotes

  • utiutshas quoted5 years ago
    In a paper in Nature he wrote, “In the deep caves of Font-de-Gaume and Lascaux, the images of horses, bulls, bison and deer are found in regions with high levels of sound reflection, whereas feline art is found in regions of the caves with poor acoustics.”36 It seems that our ancient ancestors were exploiting cave acoustics as they told stories around their drawings, with tales of loud hoofed animals being amplified by reflections, whereas quiet cats called for no sonic reinforcement.
  • utiutshas quoted5 years ago
    Even today, acoustic engineers carry out measurements using “white” and “pink” noise. When paints are mixed together they form a particular color because the various pigments alter the frequency balance of the reflected light. Blue paint reflects light of a higher frequency than red paint. Similarly, acoustic engineers use colors to describe the dominant frequencies in sounds. White noise contains all frequencies in equal quantities and hisses rather like a poorly tuned radio. Pink noise contains more low frequencies, so it rumbles with a more thunderous quality.
  • utiutshas quoted5 years ago
    For the third gunshot, I took off my headphones to appreciate the sound. The familiar crack of the gun was followed by a wave of explosion that washed past me and bounced off the end wall, before returning and bathing me in reverberance from all directions. If the world ends with an apocalyptic thunder crack, this is what it will sound like, with the rumble lingering and forlornly dying away. I wanted to shout with astonishment, but I had to remain silent so as not to ruin the recording.
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