Playing With Sounds in Your Head

[Ivan Seeking]

The sound of fingernails scraping a dusty chalkboard makes a listener immediately squirm and cover her ears.

One company believes that there is real science behind such a reaction to sounds. NeuroPop is integrating neurosensory algorithms into music to create a certain mood and evoke more intense responses from listeners. The company hopes to market its compositions to the movie industry and video game companies.

Its first CD, Overload: The Sonic Intoxicant, contains tracks ranging from "chill out," meditative music to a piece that generates a feeling of motion sickness in some.

"I want to do something that messes with people's heads," said Lance Massey, a longtime composer of commercials and the creative director of NeuroPop. [continued]


http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,63278,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

[jimmy p]

...great.... How bout the sound of a puking bird hitting a blackboard. Combines 3 sounds that people hate. Puking, Blackboards, and Birds hitting windows.

What about the sound of bones breaking??? That is a horrid sound, I broke my toe a few weeks ago while driving. Most off-putting.

Why would someone want to CREATE motion sickness?? jeez, what a weirdo... bet he is popular with his friends.

[Esperanto]

I heard human ululations make people horny. I think that's all that matters.

[Artman]

Some comercials already do this. Sounds of sirens in the background, or children crying, in stress or headache remedy commercials, etc. Alfred Hitchcock used real bird sounds for his soundtrack music in "The Birds."