©1983 Mark B. Anstendig
The
Anstendig Institute has concluded tests that prove that we are affected by the
quality of the vibrational influences around us and that these influences
determine the quality of our experiences.
One's
hearing and one's voice are the two physical functions that, for similar
reasons, most clearly reflect the state of one's physical being: i.e., the
condition of one's whole body determines the character of both. With the voice,
the whole body determines the quality of the flow of one's breath (smoothness
and evenness, etc.) and the condition of one's vocal cords (tense or relaxed,
etc.). With our hearing, the body has to reproduce sounds before we can hear
them. We hear the vibrating of our own body--not the vibrating of the sound
source and the body must be able to vibrate freely enough to reproduce all the
qualities of the vibrations from the sound source if we are to hear those
qualities (nuances, intensity, etc.). Furthermore, our bodies cannot be
vibrating differently from the sound vibrations (more coarsely or unevenly) or
we will not hear the sounds as they were produced by the sound-source. We will
hear a mixture of the qualities of the sounds from the sound-source and the
qualities of the vibrating of our own bodies. In other words, the qualities
(nuances) of the sound vibrations from the sound-source will be changed, i.e.,
distorted, by the vibrating of our own bodies before we hear them. In hearing,
singing, and speech, the body must reproduce nuances--receptively in hearing
and actively with the voice. But no one's body can reproduce a nuance that is
finer than it itself is vibrating. Thus, it is impossible to hear fine nuances
if one's own body is vibrating more coarsely than the nuances. One will, of
course hear something, and that will be a falsification that is more coarse
than the original nuances, which means one will hear a completely different
expression than that contained in the original sounds.
Hearing
is the most complicated and delicate of all known processes. The sound has to
originate at the source and be transmitted to the hearer. The hearer's body has
to register and reproduce the sound, the body has to reproduce the expressive contents
of the sounds as a flow in time, the hearer has to notice the sound and the
expressive content, and the hearer then has to mentally process the impressions
caused by the sound. Light vibrations pass easily through the transmitting
medium (air, water, glass, etc.) without changing or disturbing that medium and
are then taken in by the eye. They essentially have no effect upon the body
except through reactions within the eye itself that subsequently cause
reactions in the body (eyestrain, etc.). Not so with sound vibrations. In order
for sound vibrations to be transmitted, the whole transmitting medium (the air
or any other sound-conducting element) has to vibrate in the patterns of the
sound-source and the body has to measurably vibrate in those patterns. To
merely hear the sounds, it would be enough for just the hearing mechanism
within the ear to vibrate in the sound- patterns, but to hear nuances and
expressive content (voice inflections, emotions, etc.) the whole body has to
vibrate in the patterns of those nuances (as a sequential flow in time). The
physical process necessary in order to hear involves physical phenomena of a
much greater magnitude than those necessary for sight, even if only the inner
ear reproduced the sounds (sound waves are much larger and more powerful than
light waves). But the tests of The Anstendig Institute have found that the
whole body plays a determining role in the manner in which we hear sounds and
that it particularly affects how we experience the sounds.
There
are two basic aspects of hearing which The Anstendig Institute has termed the
"experiential" and the “informational”.1 The experiential
is the physical aspect of hearing: the actual physical registering of the
sounds, the conscious perception of the sounds, and the experiencing of the
expressive content of the sounds. The informational is the mental processing of
what has already been heard, i.e., understanding what has been said,
recognizing words or melodies, liking or disliking what one hears, etc. In
reality. the experiential aspect of hearing is the actual act of hearing.
The informational aspect depends on having already heard something and can only
follow the actual act of hearing (it usually follows so quickly upon the act of
hearing that it seems to occur simultaneously with it). This is the key to
understanding how we hear. Hearing is the physical act that includes only those
physical phenomena that happen simultaneously with the registration of the
sound by the body. Hearing in itself necessarily occurs before and is
independent of any mental processing of that which is registered. That includes
the sounds themselves, the conscious noticing of the sounds as they are
registered, and the emotional nuances of the sounds. Sounds can simply be heard
and experienced without any mental activity beyond noticing them as they occur
in us. Hearing something does not in itself include any mental processing of
what is heard or experienced and, in fact, the informational aspects of hearing
are usually a distraction from what one is hearing, especially with sounds such
as music that demand full concentration over a period of time. That is because
most people's minds are limited to being able to concentrate on only one thing
at a time, i.e., either their thoughts or the progress of the music.
The
experiential aspects of sound (the expressive nuances, the emotional content)
are the more difficult to hear because our bodies have to reproduce the quality
of the expressive content as a flow in time in order for us to experience it.
Thus, the expressive content of sound, particularly the finer emotional
nuances, are those aspects of sound that are most difficult for us to hear and
the most easily disturbed and degraded by the physical states of our bodies.
Nuances can be fine or coarse, the difference being in the size (the magnitude)
of the changes in the sound vibrations that convey the nuances. In conveying a
subtly fine, delicate emotional quality these changes in the sound vibrations
as they flow in time will be minute in size and demand a high degree of
personal physical refinement for our bodies to register them so that we can
hear them. Any coarseness of body will keep the listener from experiencing
those nuances. Therefore, to hear all aspects of sound, particularly those of
fine music, takes nearly complete relaxation and every bit of a person's
undistracted attention. The slightest mental distraction or physical
disturbance will destroy our ability to hear fine nuance and to experience the
emotional content.
THE
TESTS
Since
our hearing and our voices are capable of registering the most subtle
differences in our physical states, they are the faculties that most readily
demonstrate the effects of the quality of external influences on us.
While
most people are normally oriented towards some observation of what is around
them, most are not oriented towards self-observation. With basic,
scientifically proved meditative techniques that are now used in such fields as
stress reduction, one can achieve an extraordinary degree of sensitive
self-perception as well as perception of the outside world. In our tests, most
subjects were familiar with some such techniques and were encouraged to use
them.
For
test purposes, a repeatable, clearly recognizable test object has been
impossible before The Anstendig Institute perfected the possibilities of
equalizing the program content of recordings so that they sound the way we are
used to hearing them live. Because no meaningful live sounds can be repeated
twice in exactly the same way, recordings must be used if one wants a
repeatable test object. But, as a reference for test-purposes, the recorded
material has to sound the way people are used to hearing it in real life and
unequalized sound-reproduction is distorted both by the reproducing process and
by the peculiarities of our hearing. A comparison test using unequalized
recordings would be comparing one distortion to another distortion. With
recordings it is impossible to hold two distortions of the same sound next to
each other and directly compare them. Therefore our hearing can only perceive
the differences between an undistorted sound that we are familiar with and a
distortion of that sound. We cannot perceive clear differences between two
distorted forms of a sound without an undistorted reference sound. That is
because our memory for sensory perceptions is undependable and our hearing
tends to accustom itself to the characteristics of what we are hearing, to
accept the distortions, and to stop noticing them.
With
music that has been equalized so that it sounds natural one has a dependable
test object for use in observing changes in people's hearing in various states
and situations. Recordings that include voices are excellent test-objects
because we are most familiar with the sounds of voices and can readily
recognize when they are distorted (for this reason they are also easier to
equalize). The music must be of a vibrational fineness in which the nuances lie
at the extreme of our perception and recorded performances of that fine a
quality must be carefully sought out. For its tests, The Anstendig Institute
has made tapes of such performances that can be played for long periods of time
without interruption.
In
controlled situations, our subjects were given time to familiarize themselves
with the expressive content of certain music under ideal circumstances. Then,
another listening session was held, often on another day, in which the same
music was equalized and played long enough for the subjects to calm down and
enter into the emotional experience of the music. The session was then
interrupted and the subjects were exposed to typical, every-day, erratic
influences in our lives (usually a typical, unevenly-running auto or a public
establishment such as a busy, keyed up restaurant that uses bad background
music). After returning to the listening room it was always noticed that:
1)
the equalization that was necessary for the music to sound natural had changed,
and
2)
although the subjects heard the notes, they could no longer perceive the expressive
content of the music as before, if at all.
RESULTS
What
the subjects did perceive expressively was always a falsification of the
original, i.e., they usually experienced an entirely different expressive
content (emotion) than they had experienced before when they were relaxed and
had settled into the flow of the music. In other words, their relative
sensitivity to the various frequencies (the equalization) had changed and their
ability to register nuances had changed, i.e., the nuances were falsified in
that they were less able to register the finer nuances. The period of time
needed to get back to hearing correctly was always much longer than when they
began listening after avoiding erratic influences. Often, particularly after
riding in erratically-running automobiles, it was impossible to get back to the
original quality of perception and some subjects could actually observe that
their bodies continued to vibrate in the patterns of the auto (a generally
difficult condition to perceive without a suitable steadily and evenly
vibrating comparison, which the music provided for those people).
The
erratic states noticed by our subjects were always experienced as unpleasant
and particularly distressing because they had a reference object, the music,
with which they could compare and evaluate their physical condition. The reason
for their distress was that they were unable to hear and experience the
qualities of the music which they knew well and longed for. This state of being
is very difficult to comprehend. Few people have experienced it because a
repeatable, natural sounding test-object upon which one can measure one's
experiential reactions is new to the field of hearing.
Distinct
states of nervousness and unease were experienced by our subjects that were
clearly noticeable because the subjects had as a reference, the fine, calm
state they had been in when first listening to the music and could thus notice
the difference. Without the music as reference, they would have more difficulty
noticing those unpleasant physical states and would not have realized their
cause. That is, of course, the reason why the effects of erratic vibrational
influences are not noticed as such. During these periods of unease, none of the
subjects felt capable of performing demanding, concentrated, physical work of a
fine or delicate nature. Some were asked to attempt simple, but demanding
physical work, such as sewing, drawing, etc. All subjects found their ability
to do fine work was impaired, and one artist has sketches that actually show
the erratic rhythmic patterns of his movements after riding in a car that ran
unevenly.
Our
tests have shown that exposure to erratically vibrating influences degrades and
even destroys one's ability to reproduce, perceive, and experience the experiential
aspects of sound. Some examples of influences that strongly affect our hearing
are badly running autos, the vibrating of erratic machines, badly played music
(especially music with less than impeccable rhythmic quality), erratic noise,
and very particularly, other people who are agitated, upset, or otherwise more
keyed up than the subject. Of all machines, human beings have the greatest
potential for truly erratic, uneven vibrational characteristics: because human
beings can act according to conscious decision, they have the capability of
moving and acting in erratic patterns that are truly irregular and not in
relation to the rhythms of their surroundings. Even if one were to attempt to
program a machine to function unevenly, or if a machine develops a fault that
makes it seemingly vibrate erratically, there is always a distinct, overriding
pattern to the irregularity that is determined by the characteristics of the
machine, of the fault, and the force driving it. But, with a human being, conscious
action and the time-lag necessary to put the impulse to act into motion allows
a possibility of true irregularity of rhythm (i.e., with no repeating patterns)
that is impossible elsewhere in the perceivable universe. Thus, human beings
have the potential of being the most erratic of all known machines and quite
often they are.
The
quality of our subjects' voices and their ability to control their voices were
also affected by erratic vibrational influences. Everyone noticed some
difference in their voices, but those trained in voice production clearly
noticed that the resonances of the voice changed markedly, the voice did not
"speak" with the same resonant freedom and fullness, and the quality
of nuance they were able to achieve with their voices was distinctly and
frustratingly coarser.
The
results of our tests indicate that:
1)
our hearing, i.e., the physical registering and noticing of sounds, is affected
by the quality of the vibrational influences around us;
2)
our voice is affected by, and reflects the characteristics of, the quality of
the vibrational influences around us;
3)
since both the vocal production of sound and the process of hearing sound
involves and is determined by the whole body, it follows that our bodies and
all the functioning organs in our bodies, are affected by the vibrational
influences on us;
4)
in relation to the functioning organs of our bodies, the quality of the
vibrating of each separate organ and the rhythmic interrelationships with which
the organs function in relation to each other is affected by the quality of the
vibrational influences around us .
The
Anstendig Institute feels that these tests and their conclusions have bearing
on many aspects of life from medical research and treatment to all artistic
experience. Our findings show that the characteristics of the vibrations around
us influence the way our bodies function and, in great measure, determine the
most important qualities of our being: the manner, rhythms, and smoothness of
our movements; our ability to concentrate undistractedly; some of our speech
characteristics; how we hear; and our general feeling of well-being, for
example. We are convinced that erratic influences on us play a role in many
such new problems of society as the decline in precision and rise in the rate
of defects in manufacturing (auto workers ride to work in their unevenly
running cars and then have to sit down and do precision work), many of the odd
physical states now plaguing society such as nervousness, mental diffusion and
lack of the ability to concentrate, the decline in the quality of many of the
performing arts, stress-reactions, and many social and criminal problems that
arise from physical restlessness and unease. The Anstendig Institute feels that
it is important for researchers to study the effects of erratic and non-erratic
vibrations on our health and feeling of well-being, as well as on our physical
and mental capacities, and that such research will lead to important answers to
many as yet unexplained physical, mental, social, and technical problems that
are currently troubling society.
1 See our paper "Hearing;
The Informational and the Experiential.”
The Anstendig Institute is a non-profit, tax-exempt, research institute that was founded to investigate stress-producing vibrational influences in our lives and to pursue research in the fields of sight and sound; to provide material designed to help the public become aware of and understand stressful vibrational influences; to instruct the public in how to improve the quality of those influences in their lives; and to provide the research and explanations that are necessary for an understanding of how we see and hear.