Sound Therapy Capstone: 5

Struck with sound against our will:

I watched a TED talk about the role that sound plays in our everyday lives.  The talk was given by Julian Treasure, who does a lot of work with creating sounds for different brands and workspaces.  In other words, how to make your business efficient and successful by pairing it with memorable sounds.  During the TED talk Julian plays examples for the audience, such as signature cell phone ringtones,and single tone clips from famous songs.  What I got from his presentation was how sound sparks up the memory of certain things based on association.  However, most of what I understood was that it is important to be mindful of how we react to sound in everyday scenarios.

There is no escape from noise and from working on my binaural beats and taking note of how powerful they can be it is easy to fall into a paranoid state.  There is so much sonic chaos surrounding us constantly and who knows it affects us.  I especially wonder about the role sound has had in shaping certain cultures, based on the sonic characteristics of their environments.

Ted Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_the_4_ways_sound_affects_us?language=en

Julian Treasure: http://www.juliantreasure.com.php53-4.ord1-1.websitetestlink.com/







Response to Session 3 audio:

Now things are starting to get physical.  Upon placing the cans over my ears and strapping myself in on this one, I immediately felt the urge to let go of the tension in my neck and let my head hang back on the couch.  The modulation between the two oscillators on this patch created a soundscape which to me was visualized as multiple spirals spinning at a fast rate, each one at a proportion to the other. It did not take long for me to slip into a hypnotic state and notice that my mind was starting to slow down.  While the racing thoughts began to decrease however, my heart rate and breathing increased.  I started to breathe full breaths steadily throughout the track.  I don't understand why the racing thoughts went down while my heart rate went up, I have never really experienced that.  During the rest of the track I experienced pulsing throughout the rest of my body, something that had not occurred during the Sessions 1 and 2 audio.  Once the tracked ended, I took off the headphones and felt that overall my entire body had been affected by the listening experience.