Sonic

Last night, we went to a 'party' at the home of the president of the local high school's band booster club. It was mildly interesting -- you could see them trying desperately to sound normal, when every fiber in their bodies was screaming for them to jump up and down, exclaim how totally wonderful and engrossing this experience could be if you would only give it your life, fortune, and sacred honor -- or at least much of your life. They almost had me at one point, where they said that they had a short list of their staffing needs -- but then the reading of the short list went on for twenty minutes, and three different times, in response to an innocuous comment or gesture from the audience, the speaker would say, perkily, 'Sold!' or 'We have a volunteer!' It was done in a humourous vein, but there was clearly an underlying sense that they really, really wanted people to volunteer. Now. And for a long time (elapsed) and a long time (per day/week/month). It was a little scary. I wouldn't mind volunteering, but that gave me the sense of putting just one toe into the quicksand.

So instead, I thought about traffic. They live in a lovely area with a number of nice houses that would easily fetch prices in the mid-million dollar range -- one, where we picked up a brochure, had three thousand square feet, a three car garage, bedrooms in the 15 x 20 square foot range -- but for one little thing. Well, actually, one big thing, six lanes wide, right next to the yard. The Pennsylvania Turnpike. Based on the asking price for that house, we guessed that the presence of the Turnpike dropped the value of the house about a third -- they were asking $289,000 -- which in one sense isn't too bad if your purchase price had also been reduced, but in another is fairly awful -- not to mention what it does to the daily life there. At one point, a man standing twenty feet from the speaker had to ask her to shout, because he just couldn't understand what she had said.

I wondered why they didn't have any methods of abating the noise, and, for that, wondered what methods existed to abate noise. My guess is that there are basically three methods -- two blunt force ones (put up a big honkin' wall; plant densely-growing trees or shrubs that grow high and close together) and one technical one (capture the sounds and feed back a noise cancelling equivalent). The first would have a high chance of being ugly - hey, Charlie, you got a handball court back there, or what? - while the second would be difficult to accomplish in a limited area. The third, though -- why couldn't you do this? Other than the power question (it'd have to be always on), the only thing I could think of is that the sheer amount, range of frequencies, and variability of the highway's sounds would overwhelm any but the most robust and responsive noise abatement systems Plus, there'd still be sound (though the image of dialing, say, Shaded Forest Glen With Gurgling Pool is seductive). At best, I guessed, you'd still hear a loud sound, but it'd be a diffuse sound -- mmmmMMMMMmmm -- rather than the sound of specific vehicles and such.

Wish I knew an affable acoustic engineer to talk with about this.... though I did find an interesting article here. Apparently, it Isn't That Simple.