WHICH NOISE ANNOYS?

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 189, 12 August 1938, Page 6

WHICH NOISE ANNOYS?

That hopeful little publication, "Quiet," issued by London's Noise Abatement League, presents us with the germ of a long-needed distinction, one between noises that distress and those that don't. A completely noiseless world is scarcely to be expected short of the millennium, if,, indeed, the millennium itself does not resound to efforts of celestial harpists or joyful saints. Even if some corner ui it were set aside for utter silence, that itself might be oppressive. On earth no scientist yet has produced an- absolutely soundless room, but here ami there in acoustical laboratories there are rooms built carefully to be almost quiet. Every one who enters one of these wants to be let out again as quickly as possible. The silence is so strange that it distresses more than noise.

■ T Nr> one is-protesting against noise reduction urged by the London league. The chance that present city noises suddenly might be quieted so effectively as to give us too much silence iq fantastically remote. Yet the matter rawed in London is An important one. Among ordinary noises of moderate intensity some kinds are almost infinitely more annoying than' other kinds. It would be useful to know why. Since the revival of anti-noise activity began in 1925 the'scientific problems of exact noise measurement have been solved satisfactorily. Much has been done to reduce the noises from machinery.

The unnamed spokesman of the London league chooses his illustration from hospitals. Public wards in such institutions are noisy, but not necessarily distressing. The occupant of a bed both hears and sees whatever goes on. The source of any noise is instantly obvious and understood. A private room is more luxurious but not always more comforting. Some of the noises are kept out and all of the sights, but that last is just the trouble. Those continual bangs and rattles and scraping sounds that do leak through into the occupant's shrouded privacy become mysterious. Wondering what causes them and being unable to find out may be far more annovinfr than the noises themselves. It has been said that the most annoying noise in the world is not the banging of a boiler shop but people whispering just far enough away so that sibilants get through but not the meaning. Perhaps the noise reducers should turn a little of their skill not to -mere reduction but to making all the noises that do get in so. clear and understandable that no one need worry about what they are.