Mike explores the sonic aspects of fireworks: What is an explosion, and why do they sound the way they do? These questions lead to a breakdown of combustion versus detonation; low explosives versus high explosives; the phrase “the boom is sort of like a pop with a diploma;” and a fascinating tangent about trying to learn card tricks in the ’90s. Plus: The joys of taping a ref’s whistle to the hood of your car. -- SOURCES -- Celebrate the independence of your country by blowing up a small part of...
Jul 06, 2015•25 min
It’s the ice cream truck jingle. Even Mike’s hated Mr. Softee one. Mike provides the secret origin of the jingle, touching on the Great Depression, the growth of the American middle class, the Good Humor Man, refrigeration, and bobsled bells. -- Sources -- Ice Cream: A Global History by Laura B. Weiss http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Cream-Global-History-Reaktion/dp/1861897928 Ding, Ding!: The Commodity Aesthetic of Ice Cream Truck Music by Daniel T Neely http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxf...
Jun 22, 2015•22 min
Echoic memory, how it differs from other kinds of memory, and the definition of sound itself, all on this episode of Reasonably Sound. Plus: Jamiroquai.
Jun 07, 2015•22 min
Mike and Molly (not the TV show) take a road trip and consider Spotify, MTV2, and how we discover music now. (Also: Cover versions, N.W.A., and the undeniable perfection of Pony.)
May 11, 2015•41 min
That part in dance music, where the music builds and builds and builds and BUILDS before the tension finally, FINALLY, gets relieved? That’s “the drop.” Mike talks about its origin, construction, and application, and tells you what P.L.U.R. means. -- Sources -- Stefan Sagmeister on Storytellers (VIDEO) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlkIVIau1Nk “Waiting for the Bass to Drop” by Ragnhild Torvanger Solberg https://dj.dancecult.net/index.php/dancecult/article/view/451 “Detecting Drops in Electroni...
Apr 27, 2015•32 min
Misophonia is, literally, “the hatred of sound.” Molly Templeton has it, and talks to Mike about the noises that trigger it. -- Molly Online -- twitter.com/mememolly instagram.com/mememolly -- Sources -- “Misophonia: Diagnostic Criteria for a New Psychiatric Disorder” by Arjan Schröder, Nienke Vulink, Damiaan Denys. PLOSOne. “Decreased Sound Tolerance and Tinnitus Retraining Therapy” by Margaret M. Jastreboff AND Pawel J. Jastreboff. The Australian And New Zealnd Journal Of Audiology, Vol 24 #2....
Apr 13, 2015•28 min
How much is a song worth? How do you even calculate it? And what do DJ Shadow, Tom Waits, and the Wu-Tang Clan have to do with it? Mike Rugnetta answers these and other questions. -- Sources -- The Spotify Calculator http://time.com/3590670/spotify-calculator/ That Chevy Ad with the DJ Shadow track https://www.ispot.tv/ad/7sTc/chevrolet-attract-attention-song-by-dj-shadow Tom Waits on musicians allowing their work to be used in commercials http://dangerousminds.net/comments/tom_waits_on_musician...
Mar 30, 2015•29 min
Mike explains how pigeon-lovers Arno Penzius and Robert Wilson found evidence to prove the Big Bang. Find out about hisses, #starstuff, photons, poop, and more to get a full picture of what the universe actually sounds like. -- Universe Sounds -- Big Bang Hiss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu7nKWa8hSM Dawn Chorus http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/rbsp/news/emfisis-chorus.html#.VQj9FhDF880 Black hole http://heasarc.nasa.gov/docs/xte/learning_center/listen.html Sound of the Big Bang http://facul...
Mar 16, 2015•27 min
Mike navigates the streets, subways, and pizza shops of NYC, and as you listen, ponder whether listening to this episode makes you an active listener, an eavesdropper, or a spy.
Mar 02, 2015•58 min
On this installment of Reasonably Sound, Mike Rugnetta covers subliminal messages and their (lack of) effectiveness with help from BrainCraft’s Vanessa Hill. Chandler Bing is referenced. -- Find Vanessa -- youtube.com/braincraft twitter.com/brain_craft twitter.com/nessyhill -- Sources -- Is there an effect of subliminal messages in music on choice behavior? by Hauke Egermann, Reinhard Kopiez, Christoph Reuter.Journal of Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis Vol. 4, No. 2 Subliminal Auditory...
Feb 16, 2015•38 min
When an animal makes a sound, does that sound have meaning? Mike talks to Dr. Joe Hanson, a biology expert and curator/host of It's Okay To Be Smart, and you’ll get a glimpse into the world of animals, sound, and semiotics. -- SOURCES -- The semiome: From genetic to semiotic scaffolding http://philpapers.org/rec/HOFTSF -- Find Joe at -- http://youtube.com/itsokaytobesmart twitter.com/jtotheizzoe twitter.com/okaytobesmart
Feb 02, 2015•50 min
Mike takes you on a tour of the most commonly heard sound effects. And fair warning, when you hear them on this episode, you’ll start hearing them EVERYWHERE. Plus, Mike tells you why sides of beef and planks of wood were integral to the making of the Rocky movies. -- Sources-- Audio-Vision by Michel Chion In Search of a Concrete Music by Pierre Schaeffer The Wilhelm Scream by Elena Passarello 10 Ridiculously Overused Movie Sound Effects http://whatculture.com/film/10-ridiculously-overused-movie...
Jan 19, 2015•34 min
What explains the difference between English and American accents? On this episode of Reasonably Sound, Mike Rugnetta explains that this spoken phenomenon starts with the written word. -- On American versus English Spelling -- Why Do Brits and Americans Spell Words Differently? http://www.livescience.com/33844-british-american-word-spelling.html Americanize, Anglicise: Why Do Brits And Yanks Spell Words Differently? http://io9.gizmodo.com/americanize-anglicise-why-do-brits-and-yanks-spell-wo-167...
Jan 05, 2015•25 min
Mike Rugnetta would like to talk with you about auditory illusions (not tricks), specifically the Shepard tone and binaural beats. Use your headphones for this one. (ALSO: art school college story time!) The submarine film soundtrack work Mike mentions is here: https://mikerugnetta.bandcamp.com/track/guitar-shephard-tone Sources: - Demonstration 27 – Circularity in Pitch Judgment http://asa.aip.org/demo27.html - Scelsi: Cello Music (review) http://www.medieval.org/music/modern/scelsi/cello.html...
Dec 08, 2014•18 min
It's a Thanksgiving travelogue with Mike Rugnetta, who, like a bazillion other people, is on the road for the holiday.
Nov 23, 2014•31 min
A440 is not a steak sauce, nor is it a tax form. Rather, A440 hz is the standard tuning for musical pitch. Why is that? The reasons include, but are not limited to: The oboe, church versus secular music, and the difficulty of France. Mike Rugnetta explains. Special Thanks to Nicole He and Proprietous for their help with oboe details. Sources: – History of Performing Pitch: The Story of “A” by Bruce Haynes https://www.amazon.com/History-Performing-Pitch-The-Story/dp/0810841851 – A=432hz: On the P...
Nov 10, 2014•28 min
Taylor Swift accidentally released eight seconds of white noise to iTunes, and it went to number one in Canada. Mike Rugnetta offers his take on it, as well as a helpful explanation what white noise actually is. Baseball and cooking metaphors are used.
Oct 27, 2014•23 min
Mike Rugnetta and Atlas Obscura‘s Dylan Thuras have a fascinating discussion on the use of sound in war and at what point sound becomes a weapon. Among the topics covered: - World War I “sound mirrors” (giant concrete parabolas that ineffectively tracked incoming planes) - Project Disperse - The Mosquito - “Tunnel chicken” - LRAD - So-called “less than lethal” technology - Humankind’s unintentional sound war on the animal population
Oct 13, 2014•42 min
Do you have a favorite sound? Mike Rugnetta has a few: - A Snapple bottle opening - An orchestra tuning, with a couple instruments clearly off-key - A breaking incandescent light bulb In this episode, Mike explores the phenomenon of ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. Or, as some call it, a “head orgasm,” brought on by certain sounds, like whispering. There are even YouTube channels dedicated to triggering these responses. How does this all circle back to American telephone advertisin...
Sep 30, 2014•29 min
Mike would like to talk with you about snikt. And sploorp. And butcher some French while he’s at it. Today’s subject is onomatopoeia and the visual representation of sound, particularly in comics. AMONG, BUT NOT ALL, THE THINGS MENTIONED: - Proust - Magritte - Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics - http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-The-Invisible-Art/dp/006097625X/?tag=infguest-20 - Roy Crane - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Crane - The fadeout on the coda of Queen’s immortal “Fat Bott...
Sep 17, 2014•25 min
On this episode of Reasonably Sound, Mike Rugnetta considers noise-canceling headphones, whether you use them for cross-country flights or to mute your Simply Red-listening neighbor. He tells you how they work (and don’t work), why the notion of neutral technology is a bunch of hooey (sorry, Chomsky), and that silence is a lie. ALSO MENTIONED: - Weird warbles - Rare factions - Oculus Rift - Weirdly racist film stock - Harvard’s anechoic chamber - John Cage’s 4’33” - Wearing noise-canceling headp...
Sep 02, 2014•29 min
Why does your voice sound like your voice? A lot of reasons, but Mike's interested in the dispersive mediums that impact it. This also leads to the first Reasonably Sound special guest, musician Jason Oberholtzer, and the first Reasonably Sound Contest.
Aug 23, 2014•17 min
Mike Rugnetta opens the inaugural Reasonably Sound podcast with an appreciation of the ear, especially the floppy, weird-looking part of it on the side of your head. Turns out it has a purpose besides stabbing holes in it!
Aug 23, 2014•16 min
