Hear Here: The messy history of architectural acoustics

Twenty Thousand Hertz

Dallas Taylor

Music, Design, Arts, Music Commentary

4.8 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2019

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Humans have been fascinated with acoustics since our earliest ancestors. From Roman amphitheaters to modern symphony halls, we’ve designed our spaces with sound in mind. But the relationship between acousticians and architects isn’t always smooth sailing. In this episode, we explore the way acoustics has shaped our history and what we might do to make our spaces sound better today. Featuring Emily Thompson, author of The Soundscape of Modernity and Professor of History at Princeton University, and Trevor Cox, author of Sonic Wonderland and Professor of Acoustic Engineering at the University of Salford. Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound, and hosted by Dallas Taylor. Follow Dallas on Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn. Watch our video shorts on YouTube, and join the discussion on Reddit and Facebook. Become a monthly contributor at 20k.org/donate. If you know what this week's mystery sound is, tell us at mystery.20k.org. Episode transcript, music, and credits can be found here: https://www.20k.org/episodes/hearhere Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:33.0	You're listening to 20,000 Hertz. I'm Dallas Taylor.
0:39.2	Believe it or not, this is the sound of one single saxophone.
0:47.2	The angelic sound is created by the space around the saxophone.
0:51.8	This recording was done in an old oil depot called Inchendown.
0:56.0	It's an underground complex of huge oil tanks in Scotland.
0:59.0	Some of these tanks are 40 feet high and double the length of a football field.
1:04.0	But the coolest thing about them is they hold the record for the longest reverberation time of any man-made structure.
1:20.1	Acoustics is the study that deals with how sound works in a space.
1:25.1	It's something we don't usually think about, but it actually plays a huge role in our lives.
1:30.1	Here's the good news. You're already an acoustics pro. Humans are great at listening for clues about our surroundings. That's how you already know that I'm speaking
1:34.7	to you from a recording studio. You'd notice right away if I were somewhere else, like in a bathroom
1:39.7	or a cathedral. See, you already inherently know all about acoustics.
1:45.9	And while we usually don't come across acoustics quite as spectacular as this oil depot,
1:50.4	they play a big part in our lives, wherever we are.
1:55.8	We've only just begun to really understand acoustics in the last hundred years.
2:00.1	But our fascination with it goes back thousands of years.
	...

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