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Sound oThe f Music/Noise |
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The human dimension It was the rapid growth of air conditioning, especially residential central air conditioning, which generated the need for my writing back then. Neighbors fought neighbors. And the increasing appearances of cooling towers and "machine rooms" on rooftops in commercial districts generated noise complaints and aesthetic objections. "If the sound of my air conditioner bothers you, close your windows or buy one yourself," was a common rebuttal to a next door neighbor's complaint. More and more people bought their own unit and the new argument became what I named "patio privacy." The sound of a neighbor's central air conditioner could destroy the enjoyment of one's backyard. The dialogue, especially in the South, reached humorous extremes. In Texas, drivers were teased for driving around with their windows closed, sweating profusely to avoid being identified as not having car air conditioning. Cities were forced to address the widespread noise complaints and immediately encountered problems with a just-emerging technology in terms of sound measurement: How does the laboratory measurement of the sound of an air conditioner compare to the sound that same unit emits outside, close to the wall of a house? How far away from the unit should measurement be taken? What about ambient sound -- in the neighborhood, downtown, in commercial/industrial districts? Florida was a hotspot (that's a pun, I guess) for all this, so I assigned one of my editorial staff to go there -- I think it was Coral Gables -- accompanied by a sound expert loaded with instruments to take all kinds of measurements. They arranged for neighbors to turn their air conditioners on and off during the test -- daytime and nighttime. They took reading on patios, on the front sidewalk, down the street. He recorded the manufacturer of the cooling units. The net effect? Late one night it rained. And for a couple of hours the loudest noise in the neighborhood was that from wet tires on wet pavement from a main street a couple blocks away. When the light changed and the traffic stopped, the noise stopped. Standing in a neighborhood street the sounds of nearby air conditioners were inaudible, or at least not discernible when the traffic was moving. One became aware of an air conditioner only when standing near it. The hard-to-measure interaction of ambient sound and the human ear came into play. Today, of course, I hear one next-door neighbor's air conditioner; my other next-door neighbor hears mine; her neighbor . . . That degree of mutual acceptance of a recognizable sound will probably never come about in debates about commercial downtown impact on neighborhoods, so the battle will have to be fought using today's more meaningful measurement technology available to all competing parties. Royal Oak needs to re-think its permissible sound levels. One has to wonder who or which reference sources the City used to come up with its decibel levels. As this is written, one expert who had sent several authoritative documents to the a couple of city officials tells VersagiVoice that his communication has yet to be acknowledged by City Hall. -- 05 July 2010
The Sound of Music at CITCOM
meeting: Part 2 One immediate result of that summary was the following communication sent to City Engineer Elden Danielson and Planning Director Tim Thwing by Ed Wolfrum, a sound/recording expert who has recorded everyone from the original Motown crowd, through church choirs, to the Detroit Symphony:
"As a resident of Royal Oak I read
Frank Versagi's "Versagi Voice" regularly. The recent page pointed out the
re-writing of a Royal Oak noise ordinance. Wolfrum submitted four technical documents with his email.
Related
A flower
growing where it is not wanted is a
weed.
Think of violets.
The Sound of Music at CITCOM
meeting: Part 1 The Liquor Control Committee had already decided to require a Public Hearing about the Memphis Smoke/Diablo matter. And former commissioner Jeanne Sarnacki, during Public Comment, cited lower permitted sound-levels in nearby communities than are in Royal Oak's proposed amendments. The proposed amendments were pulled from the agenda. -- 21 June 2010
Aug 2010 Ferndale is poised to decide whether those questions should be answered by elected officials or by referendum. The basic debate is very much like that in Royal Oak:
Ferndale officials hope that they can deal with the problem and avoid having it appear on the ballot. [See The Sound of Downtown Music (noise ordinances).
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21 June 2010 |