OT: The Universal Drone

[Ridseard]

Seriously, it reminds me of the hymn that says,
"...to my listening ears all nature sings, and round
me rings the music of the spheres," and the
passage in Job that speaks of the stars of the
morning singing together at creation.

"There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Illúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was glad." ---J.R.R.Tolkien
In Tolkien's mythology, it was the Ainur which, inspired by Illúvatar, actually created the world with their music.

[Rosin the Bow]

Paul,

You are a weirdo You know i had to infiltrate this place eventually. Hello hello.

The universal drone. i remember going to some REM therapy place here and before stepping into the new- age -decorated- spaceship- like room (its no longer a business) we had to step onto this bridge they had built and place our hands on the handrails, where we could feel the 'pulse' of the earth. Rather, that the earth supposidly vibrates at a certain frequency, so low that we dont realize it, but ... according to these folks... we're buzzing.

Again.. thinking scientifically... when Astronomers are looking a new planets .. the one way in which they decide whether there are other planets or moons in their orbit is to look for a 'wavering' of the orbit. It actually has a wobbling apperance. Perhaps.. these forces are the vibration we all feel.

Perhaps... this transcends into us.... we are unaware... perhaps.. it is the rhythm of the earth that we are feeling when we are feeling the rhytm of our music.


Cheers

RTB

[burnsbyrne]

Bloomfield...
I have also wondered regarding this if the ability for people to sense or kind of hear this could be somehow related to music. Music, as I understand it, is a mainly human experience but could it connect us deeper to something like I am describing? Our need for music and rythm could be much more complex than many people assume.

Paul,
I have heard music around me for decades. No, really. I'm a city boy so I hear music in bus doors closing and car transmissions shifting. Air conditioners sometimes hum in harmony and the fans in windows during the summer give a Doo-Wop bass pulse. It's there, everywhere, even in the big cities if you get yourself receptive to it. I live about a half mile from a freeway. I can hear the drone of traffic if the wind is blowing my way. I like to think that it's the sound of a waterfall splashing into the gorge that the freway bridge spans.
Mike

[Lorenzo]

I remember discussing this universal done
on the pipe forum last fall. I still hold that
the pipe drones were influenced by this monotone
we hear, be it the busy-signal of nature, or a
carry-over from the big bang--still resonating
through the universe. Science can actually identify
this sound from outer space. Could be a kind of
"solar wind" humming at a low frequncy, but
certainly this alien music is "out of this world."

http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=6639

By the way, excuse me for digressing here, but there's a drone that sounds thoughout the universe, perhaps from the "big bang" and can be measured by scientist. Any speculation on the influence this may have had on music, or the human desire for a monotone? Maybe we really do have the "alien pipes."

http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=7009

And can you imagine what Derek would be like if he get's to that Nether-Nether land above, hears the universal drone, and decides to lay down his harp and take up the pipes?

[Paul]

Bloomfield...
I have also wondered regarding this if the ability for people to sense or kind of hear this could be somehow related to music. Music, as I understand it, is a mainly human experience but could it connect us deeper to something like I am describing? Our need for music and rythm could be much more complex than many people assume.

Paul,
I have heard music around me for decades. No, really. I'm a city boy so I hear music in bus doors closing and car transmissions shifting. Air conditioners sometimes hum in harmony and the fans in windows during the summer give a Doo-Wop bass pulse. It's there, everywhere, even in the big cities if you get yourself receptive to it. I live about a half mile from a freeway. I can hear the drone of traffic if the wind is blowing my way. I like to think that it's the sound of a waterfall splashing into the gorge that the freway bridge spans.
Mike

Mike, what I am talking about is much more subtle and isn't readily identifiable as are city rythms i.e. doors and hums of mechanical devices etc. I do think that the fact that we identify these sounds as musical rythms and harmony is interesting and suggests that we are absolutely wired for music. The drone or sense that I am speaking of has to do with the world and universe and everything within it and how they are all moving in synchronicity. It could be resonance from the big bang as Lorenzo suggested but even the big bang is only a theory, right? Since that seems to have rythem and harmony to it I was wondering if the fact that we can sense or hear it may have something to do with why we are wired for music...

Anyway I just thought it was something interesting for everyone to ponder especailly considering everything at hand.

Best
-Paul

[McHaffie]

I am dead serious here, I know exactly what you mean. Where I live, here in a small river valley, it is a bit strong even. People who have never been here even comment on something they can't put their finger on, but what is that? There is also an Osage Native american cermonial and burial site on top of the point accross the river from my home, which may have something to do with it. It's a beautiful place down here. I will never, ever sell it, and I hope all generations never will. It's written in my will that I want it to be that way if possible. (Can't force it, but you can express wishes by golly)

It's a very peacful place to me, and every day when I step outside, feel and hear the earth, it is like being the closest to everthing I could possibly be. Wonderful. I could go on and on about some really special things down here, but that's another novel!

Take care,
John

[burnsbyrne]

Paul,
Yeah, I didn't read your post closely enough. Thanks for re-explaining it. It's interesting that, at very low frequencies, the boundaries between hearing and feeling become blurred. And considering that all nerve impulses are electro-chemical in nature it is easy to imagine that what we perceive (hear/feel) at those low frequencies could be almost anything... Maybe even a rift in the space-time continuum!
Mike

[Nanohedron]

I know what you're talking about, Paul. When I put aside my preoccupations and purposefulness, and just settle into being and listening, there is something subsonic that can be felt -more in the bones than with the ear. I've mentioned it to others before, and received suggestions that I consider curbing my beer (or whatever) intake.

There is a fairly new (to my understanding) branch of research in this field, and studies in super-low freqency waves have pointed to the earth itself as certainly one source of this phenomenon: plate tectonics and especially volcanic activity are being tracked by this research, and the implications are that a method of monitoring and one day even predicting eruptions and quakes may come out of this.

As for the music of the spheres, I have no doubt that it's part of the equation as well. I rather like the idea that we can sense things beyond the immediately apparent; it just takes being still for a bit.

On the other hand, this somewhat lengthy and turgid post may well put me in the running for 'universal drone', myself!

N

[msheldon]

Umm, I'm sorry, I think that may have been the harmonics caused when I play my bass Bb.

[Bretton]

Okay, I have no idea what I'm talking about, but...

<bs>
It might be some kind of quantum vibrations and/or collapsing wave forms that our consciousnesses can perceive at times since they are also quantum based, and may even be causing the standing waves to collapse.
</bs>

Okay, I promise never to say anything like that again.

[The Weekenders]

I can always sense the magnetism or perhaps gravity of the earth but not accompanied by sound. For this reason, I have no desire to go into space. I like the feeling under my feet and would be lost without it.

I IMAGINE the earth must groan when there are earthquakes but I don't hear it.

Sometimes on a real nice Spring day up in the hills, it feels like everything is vibrating, but once again, no audible sound to my ears.

[Walden]

Umm, I'm sorry, I think that may have been the harmonics caused when I play my bass Bb.

Yes. They'd have known this if they'd read the soon-to-be runaway bestseller from Waldco Press, The Librarian Conspiracy.

<img src="http://church-of-the-holy-ghost.freeyel ... braria.gif" alt="Librarian Conspiracy hardcover edition">

"This book is really bizarre! The section on shruti boxes borders on convolution," raved famed droner, Biniou-Kozh.

[markv]

I used to work as a field biologist in western Nebraska in a very sparsely populated area. The nearest town was 45 miles away and it only had 200 people. The next largest town was 60 miles away and it only had 2000 people and three stop lights. There were a few times we had to stay on sight overnight and the absolute silence almost had a palpable feel or sound to it. You could feel everything going on around you. I remember waking up a few times hearing odd sounds. Once I walked out a couple hundred yards by starlight (the light pollution was so low you could easily read by moonlight and get around by starlight once your eyes adjusted) and the strange knocking sound that had woken me up was two tiny box turtles being amorous. Another time, during the day I kept hearing this odd "whup whup whup" sound and eventually figured out that I was hearing the wing beats of a cormorant flying hundreds of feet overhead.

Sitting on a hillside overlooking a 30 section tract of virgin mixed grass prairie, watching the shadows of clouds drift over the valley and listening to the sound of long stretches of big blue stem grass six feet high swaying in the wind was the most peacefull time I have ever spent. You could feel and hear the breath of the world there.

My wife and I return to that hillside every year we can and just sit and listen for hours. I was always tempted to bring along an instrument but never did because the sound just wouldn't fit with the music that was already there.

A Crow friend of mine went along with me once and told me that his grandfather would take him to a similar place when he was a child and sit for an entire day watching the change in colors due to the light, and listening to the world. He asked his Grandfather once why they were there and his reply was that it was to lay out the lines of his life before him over the prairie and become centered again.

That tract of prairie is a closed access research site that will always be preserved. I'm lucky enough to be able to have access but the number of places like this are sadly diminishing as time goes on. If more people could be open and receptive to the inherent beauty and healing nature of such a place, have the patience to sit and watch the shadows of clouds for an afternoon the world would be a very different place.

There is music all around us. You just have to listen and be receptive.


Mark V.

[Jerry Freeman]

There's a lot written in various texts about a hum that some hear when they access higher states of consciousness or deep states of meditation. This is probably related to what you're talking about.

On the other hand, it's interesting to note that the tuning software many of us have downloaded seems (at least on my computer) to default to 60 Hz when nothing's being played into the mic. Hmmm. Where do you suppose that 60Hz tone's coming from? (In Europe, under similar circumstances, I believe it would show a 50Hz tone.)

There's been little serious research into the effect living in the midst of a 60 or 50 Hz AC electric field has on human beings.

It's very simple to show that there is an effect, however. Simply take a volt meter that has a millivolt (typically the 3V) scale. Drive a stake in the ground. Clip the ground (black in the U.S.) lead of the voltmeter to a wire connected to the ground stake (not ground steak, please). Simply hold the red lead in your hand. If you're indoors, you'll typically find that there are three to seven volts of AC potential in your body, created by the fact that your body's a pretty good transformer, and the electric field generated by the house wiring, collapsing and reversing itself at 60 or 50 Hz, quite effectively induces a voltage in the body. Now turn off the main breaker and note that the body voltage drops to a fraction of a volt.

Supposedly, the pineal gland senses this electric field just as if it were light. That affects the body's production of melatonin, which helps regulate the sleep/waking cycle and may help protect from various cancers.

Can you remember how silent and magical it feels when the electricity's off because of a thunderstorm? Or how different it feels to sleep outside, away from civilization?

You can use this body voltage measurement technique in your own home. The idea is to turn off various circuit breakers until you get the reading in your sleeping room as low as possible. Then figure out a way to have those particular breakers off during the night. Some report that they sleep and feel better; some don't notice any difference.

FWIW

Best wishes,
Jerry

[paulsdad]

I try to get out in the woods and fields whenever possible, which isn't very often. In my part of the US it is hard to get away from the distant sounds of airplanes, equipment and cars on the highway. It is also difficult to get away from light pollution.

I probably wouldn't notice the sound/feelings such as you mention anyway, but it "sounds" interesting.

Happy listening!

Paulsdad