By Tom Davey
After winter's stark, cold silence, wonderful sounds of wildlife emerge. Robins begin chirping, cardinals cry out, and loons can move us with their hauntingly melodic cries, in nature's eternal quest for renewal. But with spring, a young man's fancy also turns to love. These days, the rhyming couplet gives way to the rhythmic thudding beat of rap music, now seemingly a pervasive part of teenage mating rites. Young men cruise with their stereos full blast, cutting acoustical swaths through many a peaceful community. The harmony of animal mating calls is often drowned out by the ear-splitting cacophonies of these electronic entreaties from motorized swain. One can feel, as well as hear, the pulsing beats of car stereos, a hundred metres away.
Since recycling is in vogue, I wondered if this energy might be recycled into something useful. I consulted a piping contractor. He checked the decibel levels, and, after further calculations, he said the deep pulsing 'music' could certainly be used to tamp down pipe bedding - or backfill - for small to medium sewer pipes - all in accordance with Newton's law of gravity, of course. Going further, he said that much of the stereo music was noise pollution anyway, so using it in sewerage projects was environmentally appropriate.
But Troy, Michigan, named after the ancient city of Trojan Horse fame, has struck back with a city ordinance designed to defend the city - not against invading Greeks, but against acoustical invaders borne by horsepower.
One of the city's judges recently backed up the noise by-law with some creative sentencing which was music to my ears. After violating the City of Troy's ordinance against loud radios by driving with his stereo blaring and windows down, Justin Rushford, 18, was sentenced to sit in a courthouse and listen several times to an entire compact disc, featuring Wayne Newton's Greatest Hits. He is now saying Danke Schoen instead of thank you! He later told the Detroit Free Press,"it makes me think about other people's styles of music. I probably wouldn't appreciate it if some old man drove past me blasting this music."
The sentencing judge must have had a keen sense of humour as well as a perceptive way of making the punishment fit the crime. But for second offences, I think more serious punishments would be in order. If Justin Rushford thought that two hours of Wayne Newton was bad, how about a mandatory minimum of four hours of Chopin's Nocturne in E Flat? Both penal reformers and Rappers will, no doubt, say this punishment is too harsh, but musicologists could work out sliding scales appropriate to the gravity of the offences. We must have a right to protect our tympanic membranes (eardrums) with appropriate weaponry.
What was intriguing about the Troy case was the precedent-setting nature of a judgement, based on the quality of the sound, not just the volume. A great judicial distinction. Under present noise by-laws, an overture from the Toronto Symphony is lumped in the same measurement soup as the ragged V-twin roar of a Harley Davidson. Lawnmowers are said to range between 85 to 100+ decibels; jet fly-overs hover around 103 decibels; jackhammers at 110 decibels; discotheques at 120 decibels; and shotgun blasts at 130 decibels.
I used a decibel counter recently to measure the music at an aerobics class. The needle flickered from 90 to well over 100 decibels, a somewhat perverse situation for those seeking good health. The trouble is that there is no way to put value on sound emissions. How can the finale of Beethoven's Ninth, performed in a concert hall, before people who paid to be there, be measured against the ragged note of a 200 c.c. dirt bike in cottage country where people have gone to get away from it all? Such a question could test the wisdom of Solomon.
There is no question that loud music is reducing the hearing capacity of our youth, ironically causing noise levels to rise to greater levels as our teenagers turn up the volume to compensate for hearing losses. This "retribution signature" unfortunately inflicts higher noise levels on the captive audiences.
Testing for noise is done fairly regularly around Toronto. Alan Mihalj, a senior project manager with the consulting firm Marshall Macklin Monaghan, says noise checks are common for new building projects. He says it is difficult to pinpoint particular noisy spots in the city - other than the airport and major roadways - but he does note that downtown streets must cope with both increased bustle and a "hard" environment, where sound is reflected off concrete and buildings.
Now, in Britain, an MP with the unlikely, but acoustically appropriate name of Robert Key, has launched a bill to ban Muzak, or other piped music from public places. "The dangers of passive, or involuntary listening are only beginning to enter the realm of public awareness. All music is devalued if it is treated as acoustical wallpaper," said Mr. Key. His Private Member's Bill would ban piped music in hospitals, doctors' offices, public pools, bus and railway stations, and airports. Mr. Key's bill inadvertently addresses the fact that theduration of noise emissions could be as important as the volume.
I believe that any legal decibel levels should be combined with exposure periods to set acceptable limits and penalties - much as our traffic acts combine speed with prevailing urban and rural road conditions when speed limits and penalties are drawn up.
Surely acceptable acoustical penalty calibration values could be worked out similar to our highway code which comprises limits from 100 km/h down to 25 km/h. An irate motorist honking his horn on the Don Valley Parkway during rush hour could be termed a minor infraction. Loud blasts on a horn to signal departures in a quiet neighbourhood, late at night, are an intolerable acoustical intrusion, usually resulting in disturbed sleep. Science has shown that such disturbances can have negative health effects. Such acts should invoke penalties commensurate with the level of nuisance and potential health effects.
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