5 ms·

It feels a bit off to me. I'm sure all these sounds exist, but this makes it seem like the norm is the peak of a workday in an industrial area or market, which

It feels a bit off to me. I'm sure all these sounds exist, but this makes it seem like the norm is the peak of a workday in an industrial area or market, which would be noisy now too. Country farms, even with animals, and horses pulling carts and whatnot are nothing like the 10,000s of cars a day going by in the background of a modern city, nonstop gas powered road construction and yard maintenance, etc. I'm sure there were loud times but the article doesn't convince me, I think it would have been way more peaceful, especially on a farm.

nyokodo 3y ago
> 10,000s of cars a day going by in the background of a modern city This is covered in the article, however for the sake of added color. Modern cities have a lot going on but are sprawled by comparison. Medieval cities were very compact for foot travel limitations and defense. Families were big and practically everyone went to church so there were many Churches in a small area. The bells would go off every few hours or more for the Angelus, the start of Mass, the consecration, and the end of Mass multiple times a day. You can still experience this in Malta and maybe parts of South America. The article goes into more detail about industry etc. It was noisy!
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  >The bells would go off every few hours or more for the Angelus, the start of Mass, the consecration, and the end of Mass multiple times a day. I'm fairly sure those had practical timekeeping concerns aside from their religious values. Nobody had clocks back then, so someone had to keep track of the time and announce it far and wide.
  - mdp2021 3y ago
    > practical timekeeping concerns For that matter, we also used the bell towers - each different, village from village - to orient ourselves in travel... Massive signposts on the horizon. Of course if you have to do something, do it with reason and wits. Likewise in term of practicality, the bells could act like the "clock" on a motherboard: regulating collective activity.
- Astraphigas 3y ago
  This is absurd. I live rurally, rn. A single car, a half mile away is loud enough that I can hear it while a rooster crows. That same car is close to as loud as a gunshot from same distance--likely bc it's continuous. I can easily hear a train thunder from 5 miles away. If simply hearing a sound is an indication of noise then yes, but not hearing it because it's drowned out by other noise doesn't equal quiet.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mdp2021 3y ago
> Country farms, even with animals, and horses pulling carts and whatnot are nothing like the 10,000s of cars a day going by Completely different noise. Those combustion and pistons engines create a texture¹, while the animal voices have been naturally developed to call for attention. A thousand motors create a background; one or a thousand dogs or deers are one or a thousand "Hey!"s, impacting sounds made to pierce the background. Like a thousand hums vs a thousand snares. ¹(Assuming, as the poster suggested, we are speaking of the continuous flow and not of single reverse-muffler-from-hell that pass nearby in their trail of havoc and Doppler)
- namaria 3y ago
  A harsh 75 dB+ of engine noise "texture" is abrasive and stressful. A pre-industrial farm background of wind, animal calls, bird songs, water flow sounds like paradise in comparison. A word, incidentally, that means garden. Places full of pleasant sounds. No one ever thought a city center 2 pm on a Monday a fitting metaphor for 'most pleasant place conceivable'.
  - mdp2021 3y ago
    > 75 dB+ That depends on the distance. > A pre-industrial farm background of wind, animal calls, bird songs, water flow sounds like paradise in comparison No. It just "«sounds»". I am typing in real time a couple dozen yards from a stream, it is much more annoying than a motorway at reasonable distance (which, as others have noted, means "kilometers" - as people who got unused to the outdoors lost the idea of how easily sound propagates without barriers). It includes even more annoying parts like the rumble that falls create through the landscape acoustic. Animal calls here are the typical obtuse racial slurs barked from villas (occasionally cries of terror from the woods). Wild boars are fortunately very polite sound wise. But birds, with their shrieks, up to cuckoos deejaying around, can be the most annoying - even more when you suspect that they are advertising for mating, the fixated things. But speaking of texture: oh the insects. Go into the right woods in the right season, and see if your thought can be louder than the buzz. Speaking of natural background can be as "innocent" as dreaming of that fashion model unaware of her halitosis. > paradise ... most pleasant place conceivable The idea of the "garden" was coined by people who lived surrounded by sand, burned their feet on sand, ate sand and drank sand juice. And thought "If only I had the luxury to live through picking fruits and enjoy a bit of shade". > No one ever thought Just generalization and evident pitfalls, there was a guy who loved the smell of napalm in the morning.

nyokodo 3y ago

> 10,000s of cars a day going by in the background of a modern city This is covered in the article, however for the sake of added color. Modern cities have a lot going on but are sprawled by comparison. Medieval cities were very compact for foot travel limitations and defense. Families were big and practically everyone went to church so there were many Churches in a small area. The bells would go off every few hours or more for the Angelus, the start of Mass, the consecration, and the end of Mass multiple times a day. You can still experience this in Malta and maybe parts of South America. The article goes into more detail about industry etc. It was noisy!

Dalewyn 3y ago
>The bells would go off every few hours or more for the Angelus, the start of Mass, the consecration, and the end of Mass multiple times a day. I'm fairly sure those had practical timekeeping concerns aside from their religious values. Nobody had clocks back then, so someone had to keep track of the time and announce it far and wide.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  > practical timekeeping concerns For that matter, we also used the bell towers - each different, village from village - to orient ourselves in travel... Massive signposts on the horizon. Of course if you have to do something, do it with reason and wits. Likewise in term of practicality, the bells could act like the "clock" on a motherboard: regulating collective activity.
Astraphigas 3y ago
This is absurd. I live rurally, rn. A single car, a half mile away is loud enough that I can hear it while a rooster crows. That same car is close to as loud as a gunshot from same distance--likely bc it's continuous. I can easily hear a train thunder from 5 miles away. If simply hearing a sound is an indication of noise then yes, but not hearing it because it's drowned out by other noise doesn't equal quiet.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mdp2021 3y ago

> Country farms, even with animals, and horses pulling carts and whatnot are nothing like the 10,000s of cars a day going by Completely different noise. Those combustion and pistons engines create a texture¹, while the animal voices have been naturally developed to call for attention. A thousand motors create a background; one or a thousand dogs or deers are one or a thousand "Hey!"s, impacting sounds made to pierce the background. Like a thousand hums vs a thousand snares. ¹(Assuming, as the poster suggested, we are speaking of the continuous flow and not of single reverse-muffler-from-hell that pass nearby in their trail of havoc and Doppler)

namaria 3y ago
A harsh 75 dB+ of engine noise "texture" is abrasive and stressful. A pre-industrial farm background of wind, animal calls, bird songs, water flow sounds like paradise in comparison. A word, incidentally, that means garden. Places full of pleasant sounds. No one ever thought a city center 2 pm on a Monday a fitting metaphor for 'most pleasant place conceivable'.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  > 75 dB+ That depends on the distance. > A pre-industrial farm background of wind, animal calls, bird songs, water flow sounds like paradise in comparison No. It just "«sounds»". I am typing in real time a couple dozen yards from a stream, it is much more annoying than a motorway at reasonable distance (which, as others have noted, means "kilometers" - as people who got unused to the outdoors lost the idea of how easily sound propagates without barriers). It includes even more annoying parts like the rumble that falls create through the landscape acoustic. Animal calls here are the typical obtuse racial slurs barked from villas (occasionally cries of terror from the woods). Wild boars are fortunately very polite sound wise. But birds, with their shrieks, up to cuckoos deejaying around, can be the most annoying - even more when you suspect that they are advertising for mating, the fixated things. But speaking of texture: oh the insects. Go into the right woods in the right season, and see if your thought can be louder than the buzz. Speaking of natural background can be as "innocent" as dreaming of that fashion model unaware of her halitosis. > paradise ... most pleasant place conceivable The idea of the "garden" was coined by people who lived surrounded by sand, burned their feet on sand, ate sand and drank sand juice. And thought "If only I had the luxury to live through picking fruits and enjoy a bit of shade". > No one ever thought Just generalization and evident pitfalls, there was a guy who loved the smell of napalm in the morning.