There is a certain point that music lovers cross in their lives when they begin to realize that music is everywhere. Outside our methods of listening to music, like records, CDs, and our phones, lies the natural world, where everything around us is creating sound at all times. Noticing the small things like wind chimes and leaves rustling eventually turns into acknowledging the pitch of the electricity behind your walls or the permanent lack of true silence at all. Our musical world intertwines with those concepts very deeply — something I am really passionate about.
The world around us is full of sound to a point where silence itself is full of its own noise. I take walks outside and listen to the sound the air makes around me. Birds chirp and the ocean rolls onto the shore. Sound is an inescapable reminder of the constant movement on our planet. There is something comforting to me about acknowledging that waves are moving around at all times, full of sound. People are so afraid of the things they cannot see, but open your ears and realize that there is so much going on beyond what our eyes can perceive.
There are even sounds that we cannot hear, which makes me wonder how it feels to be a dolphin or dog when it comes to auditory perception. Just like colors, we as humans don’t get to experience all of it, which is why we should make the most of what we can. Sound is so interactive because the way we experience it changes based on the medium it’s in and where we are. For example, when you are swimming at the bottom of your pool, everything sounds like you are in another world. If you find yourself bored and curious about sound, I truly recommend playing with your speakers at home or in your dorm and finding the dead spots where the sound stops. This can give you an idea of how sound waves travel from your speakers.
Even beyond our favorite songs, sound is healing. In meditation, certain frequencies are used to influence our own brainwaves. Frequencies like the “Solfeggio frequencies” are ancient frequencies used to promote healing in our minds. Specific hertz are associated with different areas of healing, spiritual awakening, or thought. Binaural beats essentially trick our brains into perceiving sound with more depth and generate deep focus or relaxation. Our Earth has its own frequency, the Schumann resonance, which is about 7.83 Hz. It is grounding for us because it matches the low frequency of our planet’s electromagnetic field, known as Earth’s “Heartbeat”. It aligns with the alpha waves in our brains and intertwines us with our own planet.
Letting our ears be our eyes when we venture through our planet opens up a new plane of perception for our minds. I refuse to go through the world just looking at everything. Everything has a sound, and even when it doesn’t, there is always something to be heard. I truly find that there is something so beautiful about realizing that nothing ever stops moving, and we are constantly swimming in noises to be heard. Our world is beautiful to me because of the constant motion in everything. Take some time to start listening to the little things.
