Article by Shaikh Aziz
A honeymooning couple in an English countryside visits an old abandoned castle and its buildings. While entering its chapel, its rusted door opens with a shrilling sound which does not frighten them, but a spooky feeling goes down their spines.
"I feel sorrowful," said the man.
"But I feel cold," was the reply from the woman.
"Not afraid, sure?"
"Not the least."
They continued their sojourn. They were well-read and didn't believe in ghosts and witches. Since the townspeople had told them that ghosts used to visit the castle and chapel, anxiety drove them to see both that what they could experience. They visited almost all places and corners of the fort and chapel. At times, they felt chilled when an old window would open and occasionally loneliness gripped them. However, they toured both places extensively, adding to their experiences.
On their way back to the hotel, they again met the townspeople and shared their encounters. The people wanted them to believe that the feelings they experienced were in fact the effects of ghosts who did not want to be disturbed. To the couple this was a paranormal phenomenon, but the inquisitive couple wanted a scientific explanation. They might not have been to get an immediate answer to their tantalizing question, but in September 2003, a group of scientists belonging to the National Physical Laboratory, Tedington (UK) provided that clarification. The scientists termed the phenomenon as soundless music or 'infrasound' that is inaudible to the human ear, but has a deeper effect on human beings.
They arranged a concert of 750 listeners and set a composition comprising various frequencies. When the concert was over, they studied certain effects of the composition on the listeners. Twenty-two per cent of them expressed a strange feeling, without attributing any obvious reasons for it, but affirmed that they could only feel it through their bodies. Some of them said that at certain pieces of the composition, they felt shivers down the spine, others had a feeling of extreme sorrow, the rest felt coldness, anxiety, raised heartbeat and butterflies in the stomach. The concert was repeated the next day with another audience and the same reaction was recorded.
Apparently, the concerts were organized to observe the physical reaction of soundless music, often attributed to supernatural powers and ghostly appearance at religious revelations. It has been an old perception throughout the world that ghosts and other supernatural forces do exist at secluded places, buildings of worship, graveyards and abandoned structures. Mysterious stories have been ascribed to haunted places where people encounter unfamiliar emotions.
The scientific explanation to this is 'infrasound' that is created by the friction of windows, whistling sound created by air passing through broken planks, shrieking sounds of the opening and closing of the rusted doors of a building that has not been visited for quite some time. Besides the audible sound, there is always the inaudible sound creating certain emotions not understandable to the visitor. This occurs naturally and can be created artificially, too, as in the case of National Physical Laboratory, Tedington concerts. Sounds created by winds, thunder or animal groaning are a few sources of this infrasound. Among man-made sources such as screeching of metals, opening and closing of gateways and windows, traffic noise and musical instruments play the same role.
The infrasound phenomenon is based on the simple rule of acoustic physics, according to which the human ear cannot hear sound below 20 Hertz (Hz). A Hertz is a number of cycles per second. Sound below 20 Hz is called infrasound while beyond 20 kHz is termed as ultrasound. A human ear cannot hear a sound below 20 Hz. In other words, a sound reaches the human ear but remains inaudible, however, some humans can detect it which is often described as "a throbbing hum that goes throughout the body."
In the case of the Tedington experiment, an organist was allowed to perform during which bursts of 17 Hz were released periodically, without informing the audience that what they were listening. After the performance, various results came about which would form the basis of further research on the sound discipline and musical effects on human behaviour. The full results of the experiment will be made public by the British Association for the Advancement of Sciences soon, but till now it has been proved that the sound of various frequencies affects human emotions in varying ways.
That music has been the main source of affecting human behaviour has never been disputed. Human beings have been feeling the effects for many thousands of years, but have never been able to find a scientific clue to it. When the West first encountered our music and its effects on human beings, they could not comprehend its effects owing to the intricacies of our music. The mechanism of our musical system is based on the frequencies of shruties or microtones. Every note has a number of shruties, which when applied appropriately creates certain feelings in the listener. The effect is called 'Rasa' which means taste, essence of a sentiment or a resultant emotion.
These shruties have been attributed certain colours and physical effects which they transmit when heard in the manner infrasound applies. The concept of applying various notes in certain manner as Durbal (weak), Varjat (ignore), etc, comes from that skill of application of the notes in certain frequencies. After long exercise of application of these notes, our great grandmasters came out with nine physical effects on the human emotions or the nine Rasas every composition creates. They are: Rati - pleasure, amusement, affection or passion; Hasiya - laughter, merriment; Shoka - sorrow, grief; Krodha - anger, wrath; Utsaha - effort, determination, perseverance, firmness, fortitude; Bhaya - fear, alarm, terror; Jagupsa - censure, dislike, disgust; Vismaya -wonder, surprise, admiration and Shanta - tranquillity, rest, absence of passion and restraint of senses.
According to our traditional theory of music, when a certain composition is performed, the listener's feelings are stimulated. One kind of stimulation is the general one and becomes quite obvious effecting all listeners; the other one is only felt through certain symptoms like palpitation of the heart, drying of the mouth, sadness, brightening of the face, etc. These kind of reactions are no more but the effects of the infrasound or the inaudible sound. One of the important effect of music listening in our system is that it intensifies the already prevailing feeling a listener bears. For instance, if someone is in a pensive mood, when he hears some sombre sound he would get more melancholy. This is what Ronald Wiseman, the expert who organized the Tedington concert, observed about the reactions of infrasound.
Of course, there were no sophisticated instruments as today's scientists have, but it can hardly go without admiring the authenticity of the experiments our great grandmasters undertook on the effects of the emotions on the human being. Their viewpoint about the application of shruties was to create an effect that alters the emotional condition of a listener or excites a particular state of mind through the musical vibrations that are produced through either vocal or instrumental music compositions.
Our grandmasters did not know the exact frequency of the shruties, but they were well aware of the effectiveness and even colour of these microtones, hence they observed that "...when a feeling is excited in the mind, we usually find a manifestation in some part of the body. The pleasure expressed in the faces of lovers when they meet and the sadness when they long to meet but cannot, are feelings of love called Anubhavas."
Often we hear and see someone at a shrine hearing a musical composition and gets into haal (ecstasy) and begins strange kind of bodily movements which is mostly attributed to the supernatural or ghostly influence at the shrine. However, the fact remains that it is the effect of the infrasound of which the listener is not aware of. A person drowned in ecstasy at certain musical congregations related to religious congregations is nothing but the effect of the human feelings evoked by infrasound that is not generally inaudible and is picked up by simple-hearted people. This is what Wiseman calls soundless music and we attribute it as supernatural forces. Incidentally, our grandmasters made tremendous efforts in explaining this phenomenon, but their unawareness of its physics made it vulnerable to many interpretations.
# posted by masquerader @ 15:18 ::
