TABLE OF CONTENTS Speech, music, and noise are common in that they are within the experience of everyone. Noise is also a common thread that runs through speech and music. Speech sounds are but modulated noise. Noise is a close companion to every musical instrument. The highest skill of every musician must be exerted to minimize such incidental noises as thumps, scratches, and wheezes. The close relationship of speech, music, and noise is made evident in this chapter.
One of the many amazing things about the human body is the high degree of efficiency associated with the multiple use of organic systems. The functions of eating, breathing, and speaking all take place in relative simultaneous harmony. We can eat, breathe, talk practically at the same time through the interworking of muscle action and valves, without food going down the wrong hatch. If we sometimes try to do too many things at once, the system is momentarily thwarted, and we agonize as a bit of food is retrieved from the wrong pipe.
Noise that contains energy over a wide range of constantly shifting frequencies, phases, and amplitudes can be shaped even into speech. Sometimes people lose their voices. Perhaps the vocal cords are paralyzed, or the larynx was removed surgically. For these people, the Western Electric Company offers a prosthetic device, which when held against the throat, produces pulses of sound that simulate the sounds produced by the natural vocal cords as they interrupt the air stream. This...
