"Interesting" Sound Facts

Interesting and amusing ‘sound fact’ snippets
from around the world:

Hearing loss is second only to arthritis as the most common complaint of older adults
The word ‘noise’ derives from the Latin word 'nausea' meaning sickness.
When you hold a sea shell up to your ear, the sound you hear is actually blood gushing around in your head.
Many insects can hear sounds but they do not hear in the same way as you or I. Cicadas have their hearing organs in their stomachs. Crickets have their hearing organs in their knees. Male mosquitoes hear with thousands of tiny hairs growing on their antennae.
Acoustics plays a large part in the design of modern concert halls, theatres and similar buildings. The travels of a sound wave can be shown on a computer screen, for different frequencies and for different materials covering them. This is why many such buildings have strange shapes on the walls and ceiling, such as discs, panels and saucers, to absorb or reflect the sounds.
The origin of the name of U2’s lead singer has been attributed to a dog food and the Latin phrase for 'good voice'. The most widely accepted explanation seems to be that he was named after a hearing aid shop. There was a shop in the O'Connell Street area of Dublin which sold 'Bonavox' hearing aids, and people reckon he may have adapted the name to become Bono.
Legend has it that Keith Moon (drummer with The Who) was standing in the lobby of a mid-western American hotel, with his portable cassette player blasting out some of the Who's latest work. After a few minutes, the normally crowded lobby had become deserted so the hotel manager asked Keith to turn the “noise” down to a quieter level. In true rock and roll spirit, Moon kept playing his tape at a really high volume - cue another plea from the manager to turn the noise off. This battle of wills continued until the manager told Keith that if he didn’t turn the machine off he'd call the police. It was time for a compromise. Moon said he would go back to his room if the manager would go with him. This seemed a bit strange but it was agreed and the pair went up to Keith's room on the 9th floor. When they got there, Moon asked the manager to wait outside the door while he went inside. Shortly after, Moon came back out - followed by a dynamite explosion coming from his bathroom. As smoke filled the hallway, Moon turned to the horrified manager and calmly explained, "That, my friend, is noise. This on the other hand," as he turned on his cassette player back on again, is… " The Who."

Celebrities with Hearing Problems:

Bill Clinton - wears two hearing aids
Brian Wilson - Beachboys. Deaf in one ear from when his father hit him on the head with a board at an early age
Charles Darwin - who kept daily records of his ears amplitude and frequency
George Harrison - had hearing damage from loud music
Neil Young - (loud music) main reason for his "acoustic" music during early 90's
Barbara Streisand - "Streisand has ascribed her volatile temperament to the tinnitus from which she has suffered since she was seven." source: news.independent.co.uk
Steve Martin - musician (banjo player), actor, comedian. He acquired tinnitus while filming a pistol-shooting scene in "Three Amigos!" in 1986. "You just get used to it."
Pete Townshend - "I have severe hearing damage. It's manifested itself as tinnitus,
ringing in the ears at frequencies that I play guitar. It hurts, it's painful, and it's frustrating." Townshend is completely deaf in one ear from an explosion when Keith Moon blew up his drum set live on stage in the early 1960's, and loud amps.
Ludwig Van Beethoven - Famously deaf, Beethoven was also a famous tinnitus sufferer. The great composer was driven mad by "rushing and roaring sounds" in his head. Beginning in 1798 he experienced a continual humming and whistling in his ears that gradually grew stronger, eventually prompting the agonizing realization that he was going deaf. In 1802, in a state of desperation in which he contemplated suicide, Beethoven retired to the secluded village of Heiligenstadt and addressed to his brothers, a statement expressing his anguish (see below). The Heiligenstadt Testament as it is known marks a new period in Beethoven's output; the next ten years saw one of the most prodigious outpourings of masterpieces in the history of music. By 1812 he had completed Symphony 2,3 Eroica, 4, 5, 6 Pastoral, 7 and 8, Piano Concerto no. 4 and no. 5, Emperor, The Violin Concerto, His Opera, Fidellio, The Three Rasumovski String Quartets, and a wealth of piano sonatas and other works." None of which he ever heard with his own ears.