Soon after I first moved to the area, I had a simple wish. I wished that my upstairs neighbour would get better at the video game they were playing, and finish the damn level they were playing so that the deep-sounding repetitive music would at least change to some other repetitive tune. I would hear the tune over and over and over and over... how could they not be getting better? Or did the game only have one tune of music? That was a scary thought.
One day, both our windows happened to be open, and I happened to be by my window, and made a discovery. What I didn't discover was something that I already knew: it is very hard to isolate low frequency sound. High frequency sound can be stopped by insulation and air pockets, but lower frequencys can often need good solid mass to isolate them. Back in Ottawa, in apartments made from poured-in-situ concrete, enough mass existed to quite effectively sound isolate the apartments for most volume levels; in this wood-framed apartment no such mass exists. I was not hearing was not the base line from a video game at all. With my head near the open windows, I discovered that I was hearing a real song, with real acoustics and real voices. Discovery: All Mexican music has the same base line.
This is, of course, an exaggeration, but it does at time seem very, very much like it. And now, after moving into a different apartment (same complex, different unit) and being quite bass-line-free for some time, my (new?) upstairs neighbours have discovered music and I am again enveloped by the repetitive monotone tones. Wheeeeee!
Posted by kannik at December 5, 2003 04:33 PM in Daily | TrackBackOh is that what that sound is? I just thought my ears were ringing the whole time I lived in apts....
Posted by: narina at April 22, 2004 10:55 AM