Recently I read an article about the correlation, if any, between trained musicians’s ears and sensitivity to random noise. The study concluded that musicians aren’t any more bothered by environmental noise than anybody else, at least based on the statistics. However, I can say with absolute certainty that this musician is a great deal more bothered by random environmental noise than your average joe.
In fact, random noise drives me bats. I’m a connoisseur of noise-suppressing devices: high-quality ear plugs, professional-grade ear muffs, noise-cancelling headphones. There were times during my city-living days when I wore Hearos ear plugs (they can cut up to 36 decibels if inserted properly) together with high-end industrial ear protectors (which can douse another 30-ish decibels.) The end result was a nearly hushed environment, although at the price of discomfort, both from the ear plugs—which can make one feel as though one has an ear infection—and the ear protectors, which apply a fairly strong clamping force on both sides of the head.
Nonetheless, it was often the only way for me to maintain my composure at home, when the various noises of the surrounding city had conspired to rob me of serenity. Then again, nobody lives in a city for the serenity. But there I was, living in the city, and being slowly driven to distraction by incessant sonic disruptions.
Even more troublesome, for me, was the nagging fear that accompanied most of my life in a city. I jumped at the lightest thump or creak or knock, given that I never felt safe in my neighborhood. That was with good reason: even if actual break-ins were rare, the little one-lane, one-block street in front of my house was abuzz all the time with passers-by, cars, and later at night, vagrants of various sorts. It was San Francisco, after all, and the Castro—a busy hub most hours of the day and night. I was always on edge about somebody breaking in, or at least causing damage out in front (which happened fairly regularly.) Noise could spell trouble.
A hot summer evening during my last month in San Francisco. I was sleepy and wanted to stretch out on the living room couch with a book and maybe nap a bit. Given the heat, I had one of the front windows open—although that always made me a bit nervous even if the windows were a half-floor above street level. I hoped for some quiet, but alas: as soon as I started relaxing, something always happened. A car beeped as it was being unlocked or unlocked remotely. Or a honk. Or people talking. Or a door slamming. Or bone-grinding bass came wafting by on somebody’s hip-hop infested car stereo. Or a siren was heard streaking along somewhere. Or or or or. Always something. Wide awake and annoyed, I decided to keep track of just how many sudden sound events (like doors slamming or car beepers going off) happened in a ten-minute period. After I had gotten past two dozen, I realized just what an impossibly noisy environment this was. No napping on the couch with this kind of stuff going on.
It didn’t take long after I moved to an outlying East Bay suburb for me to realize just how raw my nerves had become about sound shocks, because in my detached family house with its excellent insulation and oh-so-quiet neighbors, the sound shocks ceased. They are rare to nonexistent in my new environment. At night the house can be absolutely quiet, the only sounds coming perhaps from a minor gurgle in the refrigerator or the faint tick-tock of a battery-operated clock half a house away. And it stays quiet. No sudden blats or bloops or honks or beeps or whacks. It just stays quiet. And it’s an exceedingly low-crime environment. No vagrants, junkies, derelicts.
With the things that go bump in the night stilled, I have been able to relax at a level I hadn’t really ever experienced save at meditation retreats. Maybe silence doesn’t actually equal safety. But it’s a big step in the right direction.