Shhh
the anechoic and arbitrary portals to what is
For a moment, simply listen, wherever you are.
Eyes closed, eyes open, eyes scanning a lap around your field of vision.
Turn your head to the left. Turn your head to the right.
Did any of those movements make a sound?
Is there still a lingering trace of it?
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the quietest place in the world is inside a lab in Minneapolis, Minnesota.1
A competitive west coast option lies in Microsoft’s house in Redmond, Washington.2
However, the offering’s version of silence is not what [m]any expect.
This type of room is technically an anechoic, meaning echoless, chamber.
“After a few minutes, you’ll already start to hear your own heartbeat. A few minutes after that, you can hear your own bones grinding and blood flowing.
The point of the anechoic chamber isn’t that you will hear nothing, but that it will remove all other outside noise and allow you to hear the endless sounds of your own body.” -Mary K. Jacob, The N.Y. Post3
The most committed of listeners have not lasted an hour inside.
Sound arrives to the ear by means of propagation through a medium: air.4 A sound’s life depends on transmission and perception.
Generally, a sound is inseparable from its place of origin: think of the Doppler effect’s pitch shift and other, natural sound decays.
Technologies like EQ, reverb, and audio recording mean that when listening to a recording, we hear the recording + the room in which we’re listening to it. (Two rooms in one!)
Indoors is a controlled environment “domed off” in a manner of speaking. Buffers like walls and isolation—super-insulation—keep improvising urban elements or disturbances out.
A natural echo, indoors, is an architectural phenomenon that had to be built.
Even other design aspects like the fabric chosen for the chairs, the carpeting, or the walls’ materials or panels can be vetted and chosen with a one track mission in mind; what sound(s) they must absorb, shape, and support.
The other senses submit in hierarchy to hearing’s bidding.
A concert hall is effectively an enormous acoustic instrument.5
Comparatively, nature outdoors is a gigantic, perpetually uninterrupted jam session. Visually and auditorily symphonic, innumerable local and international visual and performing artists alike chirp in.
Motif and improvisation coexist throughout life cycles.
Amid survival and serenity, a song modulates, mediates and never ends.
Outdoors, the room stretches as far as you can hear.
It touches and musicalizes all the senses beyond what we perceive.
Right now in your environment, what music is unfolding?
Bibliography: except for *, generated with EasyBib/EasyBib.com
Jacob, Mary K. “No One Can Stay in the Quietest Room in the World for More than an Hour.” New York Post, New York Post, 3 Feb. 2023, nypost.com/2023/02/02/inside-the-worlds-quietest-room-at-microsofts-headquarters/.
“Quietest Place.” Guinness World Records, www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/quietest-place. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.
Roberts, Maddy Shaw. “Scientists Created the Quietest Place on Earth, a Concrete Chamber Where You Can Hear Your Blood Move.” Classic FM, Classic FM, 8 Apr. 2021, www.classicfm.com/discover-music/worlds-quietest-room-microsoft-anechoic-chamber/.
Swatman, Rachel. “Microsoft Lab Sets New Record for the World’s Quietest Place.” Guinness World Records, Guinness World Records, 2 Oct. 2015, www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/commercial/2015/10/microsoft-lab-sets-new-record-for-the-worlds-quietest-place-399444.
*Vassena, Nadir. Lecture during Acustica, Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana.
To visit Orfield Labs:
“Tours / Events.” Tours / Events | Orfield Laboratories Inc, www.orfieldlabs.com/tours. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.
1“The quietest place on Earth is the anechoic test chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.”
“Quietest Place.” Guinness World Records, www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/quietest-place. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.
Tourists are welcomed. For information, see this page at Orfield Labs’ website: https://www.orfieldlabs.com/tours.
2 Microsoft held the top spot in 2015. Orfield claimed it in 2021. See:
Swatman, Rachel. “Microsoft Lab Sets New Record for the World’s Quietest Place.” Guinness World Records, Guinness World Records, 2 Oct. 2015, www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/commercial/2015/10/microsoft-lab-sets-new-record-for-the-worlds-quietest-place-399444.
“Quietest Place.” Guinness World Records, www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/quietest-place. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.
3 Jacob, Mary K. “No One Can Stay in the Quietest Room in the World for More than an Hour.” New York Post, New York Post, 3 Feb. 2023, nypost.com/2023/02/02/inside-the-worlds-quietest-room-at-microsofts-headquarters/.
4 Thank you composer Nadir Vassena who taught this in Acoustics at Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana!
5 More on this in an upcoming post! :)