The sound of silence

So where are we and what's what?

Lisbeth's visitors have gone and we are back to being just tous les deux. The house is quiet and the weather is not much to write home (or a blog) about. In fact, things are particularly quiet as the church clock has stopped and time is standing still. It is really odd, not having it mark the passing of time. Despite visitors' fears, you don't hear it chime as often as you might think. There is something about its reassuring regularity that seems to render it unnoticeable (unless you pay attention, or need to know what the time is). However, when it stops working, you can hear the silence brought about by its absence of presence. It is most unsettling.

Those of you who have been reading me for some time will know that I like phrases like 'absence of presence' and that I will have been doing some surfing. Well, you're not wrong!

For the philosophically minded, this article Hearing Silence: The perception and introspection of absences makes fascinating reading. Also, did you know that if a composer creates a few seconds of silence during a piece of music, it will trigger a response in the brain that will enable listeners to break the piece of music into digestible chunks; to pay attention and anticipate what comes next? So say researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Then there's that John Cage person who created a 'silent' piece: 4'33" In this, the listeners are enabled to 'listen' to all the sounds that would be masked by the playing of music. (So none is played - obviously - for 4 minutes and 33 seconds - exactly)

Or, you could think of it in terms of absence as presence

Whichever! The clock isn't working and we miss it!