Around a curve in the path, the brook descended in a waterfall, only three or four feet in height and not much more than that in width. A sign revealed the lilting onomatopoetic name: Winnewissa Falls, from the Dakota language, meaning jealous maiden.
I imagined more than felt the hint of a light cool spray as I listened to Jealous Maiden falls. In the spring with the melting winter snows, the falls would have been boisterous. But it had been a dry summer, and a hushed and tranquil whoosh filled the air.
Again I listened closely. It was only noise, not music. I was relieved actually, thankful that I wasn’t going to be hearing celestial music from water fountains and garden hoses. Or mailboxes and parking meters.
The sound of a waterfall is a natural kind of white noise. Rainfall and ocean waves are other examples.
White noise contains equal amounts of sound in every frequency that humans can hear (roughly 20 hertz to 20 kilohertz). It can be generated artificially by feeding a series of random numbers into a digital signal generator. Studies have shown that white noise can induce relaxation, reduce the sensation of pain, and even promote healing.
But the white noise of a waterfall is not really random. The sounds are simply too complex for a human ear to distinguish.
The music in a waterfall, each note separated and played individually in perpendicular time, a five-dimensional version of our four-dimensional music, would require more powerful senses or a higher intelligence to apprehend. What seemed like noise to us could be a cantata for artificial intelligence or alien minds.
In the movie Contact, the original alien signal consisted of prime numbers. In the harmonics of the signal, a television picture was encoded. And interlaced within the TV waves was another signal containing instructions for the alien erector set.
Maybe that’s why I loved the noise of a waterfall. It only seemed like noise.
Order the Book:
Your favorite local bookstore
Bookshop.Org
Amazon
Bookstores/Libraries: Available through Ingram Content Group.
