Acoustics of Shells

The seashell has an inside of which has many hard, curved surfaces great for reflecting sound the ambient noise. The air moving past and within the shell, the blood flowing through your head, the conversation going on in the next room—is resonating inside the cavity of the shell, being amplified and becoming clear enough for us to notice. Different sizes and shapes of shell sound different because different resonant chambers will amplify different frequencies.

Whispering walls

St Pauls

Ideas for Listening devices for the Tidal Thames

Wartime listening device, Capel

A concrete 'ear' on the cliffs near Capel-le Ferne, similar to that on the Dungeness marshes. The idea was to pick up the sound of approaching aircraft, but it was superseded by radar- and faster aircraft.


More Info

Tides - What causes them? How do they work?

Clear Information about Tides

Tide is defined as the vertical movement of water and only goes up and down

Current is the horizontal or sideways flow of water. It floods in which makes the tide rise and ebbs out which makes the tide fall. 

The difference between the high tide and low tide is called the range of tide. For instance, if the water depth at high tide is 20 feet and at low tide is 18 feet, the range of tide is two feet.
There are two types of currents that you can expect in regard to tides.

• Flooding current is experienced when the tide is rising.

• Ebbing current is experienced when the tide is falling.

When the tide has reached it highest and lowest points there is a brief period where there is no current ebbing or flooding, this is referred to as slack water.

The length of time that it takes for the earth to rotate around so that the moon is in the same position is actually a little over a normal 24 hour day. It is 24 hours and 50 minutes or a tidal day. That is why the tidal cycle starts approximately 50 minutes later each day. As the earth rotates, the moon’s gravitational force continually mounds the water and that fluid mound moves around the earth. The actual height of the tide is influenced by the shape of the coastline and depth of the water.

Thames at 4am Sound Recordings

Sound has become recognised as a medium that can make people question and reflect about many things including their own autobiographical experiences and narratives. As well as how movement and interaction in urban environments is partly influenced by the built environment, and temporal dimensions of the everyday.

Listening to sound whether that may be through field recordings (selected individual pieces of audio) and/or soundscapes (audio compositions created from a range of recordings) sheds light on how sound can both be an investigatory tool and an emotive medium. Stopping and listening can engender an experience(s) making the subconsciously known and mundane a revealing and surreal encounter of the world that we live in. Consequently the ordinary can become the extraordinary
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Sound Mapping

Link to Sound Mapping of The Thames (Kent + Essex)

Something a little interactve: PLAY Orchestra at the Southbank

PLAY.orchestra is our virtual orchestra, which was based outside the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank of the Thames during the summer of 2006.

56 plastic cubes and 3 Hotspots were laid out on a full size orchestra stage, each cube containing a light and speaker

Sitting down on the cubes or standing in the hotspots turned on an individual instrument and with the addition of 58 friends you could hear the full piece.

The installation was also Bluetooth enabled - allowing participants to receive a ringtone of the piece they had created as well as other Philharmonia Orchestra ringtones.

The orchestra played two different pieces each week - one a new commission from a young composer and one a piece from the classical repertoire.

The music played when the seats were activated was made using samples from our free sample library - you can download the samples here.