The Sound Book: The Science of the Sonic Wonders of the World - Trevor Cox [epub]

“A lucid and passionate case for a more mindful way of listening. . . . Anyone who has ever clapped, hollered or yodeled at an echo will delight in [Cox’s] zestful curiosity.”―*New York Times*

Trevor Cox is on a hunt for the sonic wonders of the world. A renowned expert who engineers classrooms and concert halls, Cox has made a career of eradicating bizarre and unwanted sounds. But after an epiphany in the London sewers, Cox now revels in exotic noises―creaking glaciers, whispering galleries, stalactite organs, musical roads, humming dunes, seals that sound like alien angels, and a Mayan pyramid that chirps like a bird. With forays into archaeology, neuroscience, biology, and design, Cox explains how sound is made and altered by the environment, how our body reacts to peculiar noises, and how these mysterious wonders illuminate sound’s surprising dynamics in everyday settings―from your bedroom to the opera house. The Sound Book encourages us to become better listeners in a world dominated by the visual and to open our ears to the glorious cacophony all around us. 35 illustrations

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As a seasoned architectural acoustics specialist, Cox has made a living out of retrofitting theaters and classrooms to minimize unwanted echoes and other sonic distortions. While visiting an unusually reverberant London sewer, Cox had a sudden epiphany that spawned a new hobby somewhat at odds with his chosen profession: seeking out and cataloging unusual noises. One result of his research is this enchanting guidebook to the “sonic wonders of the world,” in which he analyzes such aural anomalies as humming sand dunes and chirping Mayan pyramids. Without getting lost in arcane scientific minutiae, Cox provides several easily digested lessons in acoustics on his way to describing the many sonic marvels he visited and studied around the world, from the famous whispering gallery of London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral to the melancholy underwater songs produced by bearded seals near the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Interspersed with witty anecdotes and surprising observations on the nature of hearing, Cox’s work will give readers a new appreciation for both the odd and the ordinary noises that form the soundtrack of our daily lives. --Carl Hays --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review

Cox’s enthusiasm for his specialty is contagious. I’ll now be keeping my ears wide open. (Washington Post)

Turns up the volume on…sonic oddities. (NPR)

Reveals how much art there is in the act of listening. Reading it made my ears more mindful. (Adam Gopnik)

From its first page to its last, The Sound Book invites readers to close their eyes and open their ears to the sounds, both normal and peculiar, that surround us all. (Science News)

Bursting with aural arcana that adds just the right amount of tech-savvy detail, The Sound Book brings into relief a world often obscured in our image-heavy existence. Even as we follow Cox to the ends of the Earth, what makes his book a real rush is that it''''''''s ultimately an ear-buzzing journey to the center of our minds. (Greg Milner, Perfecting Sound Forever)

A riveting ear-opener. . . . A must-read for sound-lovers of all stripes. (Bernie Krause, author of The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World's Wild Places)