Sounds of Silence

I have always admired, marveled, and envied dogs for their ultra-aural capabilities and their unparalleled olfactory capacity (dedicated to another blog?!?). All this, for a creature that cannot see color..?

My association with a dog as a pet was extremely brief. When I was 9 and my sister 12, we got introduced to a stray dog. Right! 'Tommy', the little bag of bones with a tawny coat, and an X-ray existence strayed into our lives. That, experience, circumstances, and above all maudlin emotions deterred us from having any kind of pet in future is altogether a different story (something I might share with you when I feel..). Thanks to uncanny coincidences, even the brief association with an uninvited pet could not stop us from getting to know each other's prowess/limitations.

For example, who has not been affected by a canine's eyes; especially, when a dog looks at you imploringly and cocks its head? Well, Walt Disney, Pixar, and several other entrepreneurs have been able to entice the less–than-10-years populace (not to mention the 'higher' strata of people) with this one feature of dogs, for their own benefits. I am sure you would have your own stories to reminisce about...

My premise here, based on the statements expressed so far, is not to digress on 'human economics', nor extol the virtues of the canines (which in itself would be volumes, and left better to the so-called 'experts' in the field of interest) but use the trait to discuss something human. Eh?

My brother always told me that I had been a dog in my previous birth. Believe me, this is an innocuous observation on my brother's part rather than the intent to philosophize on the theory of karma or reincarnation (I shall express my opinion on this esoteric subject later though). I do not want, or even intend to imbue thoughts away from the premise. This blog, to be honest, triggered off when the mailperson arrived with his/her USPS truck (the scenario presented here might appear specific to a US environment, but this is true anywhere, anytime, and in any part of the world in comparable scenarios).

The dog (which is incidentally kept in the recesses of her backyard, and away from public scrutiny for whatever reasons) belonging to my neighbor started barking its usual set of yips and yaps! Has he seen her? Has he smelt her? I am assuming the neighbor dog to be a 'he' (call me chauvinistic, but that is how the male-dominated human world thinks or tends to think (if at all)). Unlike humans who can classify themselves in many categories unsubscribed, a dog is 'he' or a 'she', thank God!

'He' (the DOG) somehow has to come to know by pinging the audio-frequency range that the mailperson is around. And, 'he' starts barking… Well, 'he' announced 'her' unpleasant arrival (probably more as a habit than a discriminating gesture, I hope...) way before even 'she' rolled in, with her accoutrements. 'He' is blessed, isn't he? God has given 'him' something that the human species can't contend with? Yet, scaling down, I have found/observed that there are 'creatures' from our own 'species' those have imbibed (if not all), mealy-sections of the bigger pie held by the canine race. In other words, there are folks who can ascertain the environment based simply on sounds and their characteristics. One digression of an example is the infant that can recognize and react 'positively' to its mother's sounds and presence. Nuances of this feature, or virtue builds on, I hope, genetic code.

In our younger days, my sister and I had on-the-spot competitions to 'diagnose' or identify the 'sound-maker' (vehicle, musical instrument, or anything that one could use to make a sound) just by listening to the daily sounds of life. We had honed our aural capabilities (similar to a dog away from the source) to identify vehicles by the sound they produce through their exhaust pipes. In short, depending on the aural capabilities to discern varying frequencies, my sister and I could clearly identify the brand and make of the vehicle that passed by the street. A 'Vespa' scooter has a different frequency than a 'Lambretta' (now extinct), a piccolo is different from a flute; ergo, a 'Ford' car would sound different from a 'Toyota'. I have seen folks on television shows who seem to have the exceptional capability to register, store, and recall sounds from their 'own' database to identify different sources of sound. When I compare myself with these 'extra-gifted' people, I might not stand a great chance to win in shows of this cadre, but I do know I have a different perspective and God-given capacity when it comes to adjudging sounds for what they are and their underlying variations.

To cite, the sound of percussion equipment used by my mentor/guru – R.D. Burman is way different from the ones used by his contemporaries. All these great musicians used hand-made musical instruments which had their own characteristic timbre. Closing my eyes and just listening to the variation of choice of instruments and their timbre, I could positively identify that this particular song was composed by so-and-so. I still do…

Today, with the advent of electronic and digital technology the identification of a so-called instrument by its timbre becomes tricky if not discernible. I am not against technological advancements (I play the Roland V-Drums, Yamaha keyboard etc., as any other musician) but the granularity with which I could tune my ears in terms of man-made instruments somehow seems to belittle my so-called aural spectrum when it comes to digitized sounds. I can, at the present, probably blame myself for my intransigence to not fully 'getting into the groove'. But that said, I rest my case…