Join GORDON RUMSON
on a tour of some of the fragments of forgotten sounds

Dedicated to the ultimate hitchhiker --
Douglas Noel Adams

But what was the word and what did it sound like?

And how did their laughter sound?

Science gives us the Big Bang. A Noise. Typical. Science makes lots of great technology but a hell of a racket too.

When Tolkien wrote his Silmarillion his creation fable was based utterly on music -- and music like that of the 19th century romantic tradition with themes, countersubjects and development sections. A veritable Sonata of Creation.

But we have no idea what these sounds were like, no way to know. No ears to hear. Even if we had giant radio antenna sized ears, the sounds are billions of years away. But Science is tuning in, listening for the echo of God's voice.

So many other sounds are gone. The terrifying sounds of the dinosaurs. The roar of the sabre-tooth tiger. The voices of our ancestors.

Ancient cities. Ancient cultures. Scattered remnants of lives, of literatures, of architecture. And so much silence. Our history is made up of reams of pictorial and literary data and next to nothing for the ear. It is as if we watched a film but without sound. Yes, we could get the story, but how much of the character would we lose?

What songs did our ancestors sing on the grasslands of Africa? What were the voices like when the Pyramids were built? What was it like when Confucius spoke? What chants were heard in Afghanistan when the now destroyed giant Buddhas were carved? Did Blake mention how noisy the dark, Satanic mills were? What was Chopin's voice like? Is there anyone yet alive who recalls the sound of the post-horns in Europe? Even the American TV network NBC chime (a major sixth falling third) may be a lost sound.

But is it possible to catch a faint sound from out of the distance? Can we know what our ancestors sounded like? Can we know their music? Can we know the soundscapes (to use a term by Murray Schafer) of their cultures?

One can hear the silence that is all that remains of our human sonic history.

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