The Sound Blog

Category: perception

  • How the Centre Court roof changes the sound at Wimbledon

    How the roof of the Centre Court at Wimbledon changes a thwack to a thwock as the racket hits the ball

  • Youtube experiment for Glastonbury

    What makes a geat mobile recording, we’re trying to find out using YouTube clips from Glastonbury.

  • Navigating by chimes – Where the doors go Ping!

    On the Ning Nang Nong Where the Platforms go Bong! And the Escalators all say Boo! There’s a Nong Nang Ning Where the doors go Ping! And the lift doors Jibber Jabber Joo … * A few years back I was lucky enough to visit Japan. One of my lasting sound memories was the strange…

  • Tone deafness

    At my saxophone lesson this weekend, my teacher asked me to sing what I was meant to be playing. It was pretty excrutiating and it took me a few attempts to hit the notes correctly. Fortunately, I’m not completely tone deaf, just a little out of practice. It’s estimated that tone deafness (congenital amusia) affects…

  • Fingernails and blackboards

    Why is the sound of fingernails dragging down a chalk board so horrible? This question just won’t go away. Ever since I ran an experiment into the worst sound in the World (www.sound101.org), a lack of a good answer has been bothering me. I’ve been doing some science shows for sixth formers in London recently,…