Scientists identify why the sound of nails scraping down a ... | chalkboard scratch soundchalkboard scratch sound
NEAL CONAN, HOST:
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SCREECH! Nails on a chalkboard: Why so bad? - SiOWfa12: Science in ... | chalkboard scratch soundSounds that already abounding our apple accept vanished aloof about completely. Case in point:
(SOUNDBITE OF TYPEWRITER KEYS)
CONAN: In an commodity for mentalfloss.com, Kara Kovalchik aggregate a account of 11 sounds that your kids accept apparently never heard. We ample you could analyze a few more. What's the complete from your activity that has vanished? 800-989-8255 is the buzz cardinal - is our buzz number. Email us: talk@npr.org. You can additionally accompany the chat at their website. Go to npr.org, bang on TALK OF THE NATION.
Kara Kovalchik joins us from a flat in Royal Oak, Michigan. She's analysis editor for mentalfloss.com. Nice to accept you with us today.
KARA KOVALCHIK: Acknowledge you so much. Nice to be here.
CONAN: And accept the kids in your ancestors anytime heard that chiral typewriter?
KOVALCHIK: Well, I don't accept kids, so...
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
KOVALCHIK: But I've talked to people. I acclimated to assignment in an appointment area we had to accompany out an old chiral to do a five-part carbon form. And the aerial academy intern that typed it aloof absolutely recoiled aback she hit a key, said it airtight at me.
CONAN: Those I'm old abundant to bethink newsrooms abounding with those sounds as bodies struggled to get on air on deadline.
KOVALCHIK: Right. That acclimated to be the archetypal complete of a active office, newsroom. There was a ballyhoo of typewriters and ripping the folio from the plate, you know, rip here, you know, stop the presses.
CONAN: What gave you the abstraction to do a account of vanished sound?
KOVALCHIK: Well, my bedmate Sandy Wood, who's additionally a analysis editor at Mental Floss, and I were watching some absoluteness show. I balloon which one. And they had a complete effect. It sounds like a almanac aggravate arrest beyond an album, and it was to indicate, oh, my God, you know, something's weird. Stop everything, stop the action. And he angry to me, you know, I bet you a lot of kids wouldn't alike apperceive area that complete originated from. And that aloof got us talking about added sounds that bodies apparently wouldn't apprehend anymore.
CONAN: Here's an email we accept from Lucia(ph) or Luccia(ph) in Cameron Park, California: The complete from my activity that has already vanished: a buzzer apparatus in the newsroom. My bedmate was in radio. There was consistently a closet-sized allowance with a aperture that had a window area they kept the buzzer machine. It was alluring watching the chicken agenda cranking out the account of the day - amazing – yes, at an amazing and amazing 60 characters a minute.
KOVALCHIK: You know, what's absorbing about that, my actual aboriginal job aback in 1976, I was ahem years old, still a teenager, OK? But it was as a Telex abettor for a ample Fortune 500 aggregation and it was a buzzer machine. And you - yes, it was 64 words per minute was how abundant - how fast the affair would go at top speed. You punched out your belletrist on agenda tape. You didn't accept a about-face key for caps. You had to hit numbers or abstracts if you - I mean, abstracts or letters. I mean, I apperceive that - and, yes, they did put us in small, airless, closet-sized apartment because the things were so noisy.
CONAN: Let's see if we'd get some callers in on the conversation. 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. We'll alpha with Bill, Bill with us from Russellville in Arkansas.
BILL: Hello. I absence the complete of a golf brawl hitting persimmon copse instead of the metal that clubs are fabricated out of today.
CONAN: Wow. The...
KOVALCHIK: That's actual specific.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
CONAN: The complete is absolutely audibly different, though.
BILL: There's annihilation - it's a little bang that you get aback you hit the brawl perfect, admitting aback you hit with metal, it's aloof a clank. Alike if you hit it good, it's a clank. It ain't the same. I absolutely absence that.
CONAN: It's the aforementioned as aback you go to a aerial academy baseball game, and it's the advise of horsehide on aluminum.
BILL: Yes, sir. Actual good, yes, comparison. Absolutely right. Same...
KOVALCHIK: Right. Instead of hickory.
CONAN: Yeah. Bill, acknowledgment actual abundant for the call. Appreciate it.
BILL: Absorbing show. Acknowledge you.
CONAN: Acknowledge you. Let's go abutting to - this is Patty(ph), Patty with us from Anderson in Ohio.
PATTY: Hi. I was aloof activity to say my son is activity to absence the complete of a rotary punch phone.
CONAN: Oh, we appear to accept that complete appropriate with us.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROTARY PHONE DIAL SPINNING)
CONAN: Apparently somebody calling, well, not 911 because you can acquaint how abounding clicks there were. It was an audio cue.
PATTY: Absolutely. And afresh there was consistently the associated complete of your mother babble at you not to amplitude the bond so far.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
KOVALCHIK: Right. Oh, yes. OK. You charge accept accepted my mom.
PATTY: Yeah, yeah. I anticipate they went to the aforementioned - they pulled them abreast in gym academy - in gym chic at academy and...
KOVALCHIK: Yeah, gave them all the aforementioned cliches. But, yeah. Interestingly enough...
PATTY: I capital to add one added that is absolutely a babble - a complete that's been continued ambit but - abroad and gone but - from my childhood. My dad was a jockey. And aback I was little, I went to the race, went to the horse races, there was absolutely a man with a adenoids who began the races. And that song has continued aback vanished.
KOVALCHIK: Oh, played the "Call to the Post."
(SOUNDBITE OF HUMMING SONG)
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Why Do Fingernails on a Chalkboard or Scraping on a Plate Make Us ... | chalkboard scratch soundPATTY: Exactly.
CONAN: I accept somebody on our agents who can absolutely do that a lot bigger than I can.
KOVALCHIK: I'm activity to say Neal's activity to booty Michael Winslow's job.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
CONAN: Patty, acknowledgment actual abundant for the call.
PATTY: Acknowledge you for demography my call. Bye-bye.
CONAN: The complete from my life, writes Joy in Memphis, Tennessee, that has vanished, the burring and beat of the 8 mm cine projector.
(SOUNDBITE OF 8 MM PROJECTOR RUNNING)
CONAN: My ancestor acclimated to advertisement our home movies, she writes. Aback the movies had no sound, of advance the alone audio was the complete from the projector, forth with comments from the peanut gallery, of course.
KOVALCHIK: Exactly. And they had to bark over that noise.
CONAN: Yeah. Indeed. Alike the complete of the 35 mm projector is vanishing from cine theaters actual quickly.
KOVALCHIK: Right.
CONAN: So let's see if we can get addition addition in. This is Joseph. Joseph, with us from Charleston in South Carolina.
JOSEPH: Hey. Actually, I had two as well, one from aback in my childhood. Before the aerial projector, we had the columnist button Kodak slides. Yeah, (Unintelligible) yeah.
CONAN: The little carousel that...
JOSEPH: The carousel Kodak.
CONAN: Yeah. There was the - as anon as bodies brought that out, you knew you were activity to be seeing a lot of vacation pictures.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
JOSEPH: Exactly, yeah. And the additional one - actually, I'm appealing recent, you know? I'm a appealing adolescent guy, and I alike had to anticipate about the complete of dial-up Internet with that (makes noise), you know?
CONAN: Oh, that - and modem breath.
KOVALCHIK: Right. Yeah. The shake-hand arresting amid the two.
JOSEPH: Right.
CONAN: Yeah.
JOSEPH: Yup.
CONAN: Joseph, we anticipate of all of these sounds as, you know, 19th or aboriginal 20th aeon sounds or alike midcentury. That wasn't - hasn't vanished all that continued ago.
KOVALCHIK: You wouldn't anticipate it has, but I had a lot of comments from bodies who said my kids accept never heard that modem sound. Yeah, I anticipation of that as article adequately recent.
CONAN: Joseph, acknowledgment actual abundant for the call.
JOSEPH: Acknowledge you.
CONAN: Lynn(ph) in Roseville, California emails: The ancient aperture machine. The cranks complete abundant bigger than hitting a button. I don't absorb a lot of time in casinos. I don't apperceive if you do, Kara Kovalchik, but do aperture machines complete altered today?
Right. And I don't absorb a lot of times at casinos, but I've heard those in old movies and TV shows where, you know, the characters go to Las Vegas aback in the '70s or something. And there is a audible ripping affectionate of sound. You can absolutely apprehend the apparatus axis and spinning. And I anticipate you get a little added activity for your division that way.
Let's go abutting to Peter. Peter with us from Salt Lake City.
PETER CALLER: Yes. I anticipate one affair that kids don't affliction anymore in the age of agenda music is the hiss from a cassette tape, abnormally aback you accomplish a alloyed tape.
CONAN: This would be a acceptable thing.
CALLER: I don't know. There are some bodies that are affectionate of cornball for it. They affectionate of absence that old, and I assumption I'm affectionate of crumbling myself here, this old hiss from a cassette tape.
CONAN: It's additionally possible, Peter, we lose the adeptness to bolt aerial frequencies as we age. So the hiss may be there. We aloof can't apprehend it anymore.
CALLER: (Unintelligible) you'll never know.
KOVALCHIK: If you accept to cassette tapes or fabricated his own, I'm abiding already in a while the cassette would get awash up somehow or alpha unwinding in your player, and you rewound it. But there is that little application area the band was wrinkled, and it had a characteristic complete area - there's some complete drop, et cetera.
CONAN: Those in the industry...
CALLER: I anticipate it's activity bottomward the drain.
CONAN: Those in the industry...
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Fingernails down a chalkboard: why it hurts our ears | ZDNet | chalkboard scratch sound(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
CONAN: ...always afraid about wow and flutter. Those are the...
KOVALCHIK: Yup. Oh, yeah.
JOSEPH: Yep.
CONAN: Peter, acknowledgment actual abundant for the call.
CALLER: Acknowledge you.
CONAN: This is from Elizabeth in Goshen, Indiana: The Gaylord apparatus is the affair that punched the apportionment agenda aback you arrested out a book at the library. I can bethink for aback I was little the acceptable ka-chunk(ph) complete it fabricated aback demography that little block of agenda off the bend of a card. I formed in a library aback they were still in use. And now, aggregate has gone all computery, which has amazing allowances except for the actuality that I'll apparently never apprehend the ka-chunk of the Gaylord apparatus anymore. Boy, I'm accepting all nostalgic. Elizabeth ends her email with a sniff.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
CONAN: But I don't absolutely carefully bethink audition this sound.
KOVALCHIK: I do remember, admitting - you could consistently apprehend area the apportionment lath was years ago because they had a chiral date brand ka-chunk, you know, because they would cast it to change the date and brand your due date slip. So there was ka-chunk. It wasn't a Gaylord machine, aloof a regular, you know, appointment accumulation date stamp.
CONAN: Let's go abutting to Michelle. Michelle with us from Waterford in Michigan.
MICHELLE: Hi. How are you?
CONAN: I'm good, Michelle. Happy Thanksgiving.
MICHELLE: Well, acknowledge you. It's actual affectionate of you. You know, there's two things I miss, and one is actual baby to my heart. The aboriginal thing, though, is the complete of bill falling into a pay phone. And you can consistently acquaint it's abandoned because the bill that hit the basal they had that answer in a payphone.
KOVALCHIK: Right.
MICHELLE: And the added affair is with the new technology of the cars anymore - aback I was a little girl, I could acquaint my father's tires, the way they - his car rolls in the street. I knew aback my dad came home. And all four of us kids will run from the backyard, daddy's home, you know? And you could acquaint your dad is rolling his car from every added car on the sidewalk, in the street. Now, it's different.
KOVALCHIK: (Unintelligible)
MICHELLE: You accept the electric cars. Cars are fabricated differently, and they don't get that bang like that.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
KOVALCHIK: Right. Even, you know, the domiciliary dog could admit daddy's car advancing in.
CONAN: And again, not accepting that characteristic bang could be a acceptable thing.
MICHELLE: Yep.
CONAN: Acknowledgment actual much, Michelle.
MICHELLE: Acknowledgment for the - acknowledgment for your show. It brings us such addicted memories of things. And I'm alone 48, but it's nice to remember.
CONAN: Acknowledgment actual much, Michelle. She's adulatory - brought the complete of the bill activity through the payphone. And that was the aboriginal phone-hacking device. If you had a band recorder and could comedy the complete of a division activity through the phone, you could fool the buzz aggregation into cerebration that you now adapted a continued ambit alarm beyond the country, which is all a division could buy you in those days.
KOVALCHIK: Not that you anytime approved that, Neal, right?
CONAN: No. Not once.
KOVALCHIK: OK.
CONAN: Because my band recorder had too abundant hiss on the tape.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
KOVALCHIK: And wow and flutter, too.
CONAN: We're talking with Kara Kovalchik, the analysis editor at mentalfloss.com. You're alert to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And here's an email from Jack in Bakersfield, California. I bethink aback in the backward 1940s and aboriginal '50s the complete of beef locomotives and their beef whistles backward at night on my abundant aunt's aback porch. There was annihilation like it. And I assumption that's one of those archetypal American sounds that has all but vanished from the absolute landscape.
KOVALCHIK: Right. I mean, about sounds like an old, automated branch or something, you know, from old movies that, oh, the steam, all the noises of a railroad backyard were altered aback in the '30s and '40s.
CONAN: And there is one that's on your list, and this is the complete of a continued - well, not actually, well, that long, but now absolutely alone technology acclimated to ablaze things up for photography.
(SOUNDBITE OF FLASH CUBE)
KOVALCHIK: Right.
CONAN: The beam cube.
KOVALCHIK: That's the sound.
CONAN: And that was already about universal.
KOVALCHIK: Yes, because it was such an amazing progression accomplished the single-use beam bulbs. So aback mom or dad brought out the Instamatic at parties or your graduation, they could breeze four pictures in a row, instead of accepting to change, you know, stop afterwards every shot. Of course, that click-grind-click-grind was usually followed by ow, ow, ow, ow, as dad popped the hot beam cube into his easily and afresh accomplished this could be so hot.
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NAILS ON CHALKBOARD SOUND EFFECT - YouTube | chalkboard scratch sound(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
CONAN: Let's go abutting to Jim, and Jim's with us from Spencer, Iowa.
JIM: Oh, sure. Well, similarly, I was aloof reminiscing about the old Polaroid with its bang and whirr, actual characteristic sound, putting out a picture.
CONAN: Additionally a characteristic aroma as the chemicals set.
KOVALCHIK: Oh, yeah.
JIM: A lot of action cat-and-mouse for the photograph to arise so.
CONAN: Were you one of those Polaroid shakers to try to get it to dry quicker?
JIM: Well, no, I aloof affectionate of lay them, let them lay and aloof airtight a few more.
CONAN: OK, Jim. Acknowledgment actual abundant for the call. Here's an email from Sally in Holland, Michigan. The old appearance pinball machines with all those dings and twaps and the complete of the rolling brawl and the thumps from bumping the apparatus that had eventually led to the bing, bing, bing and the angle light. But I'm not sure, Kara Kovalchik, but I anticipate they still accomplish those.
KOVALCHIK: Right. But a lot of those sounds are absolutely now added digitally, the recordings of the old automated machines, because bodies like the - there's - that's a actual acceptable complete to hear. Abundant like on agenda cameras, they've added the complete of a bang click. It commonly wouldn't accomplish it, but bodies like to apprehend that.
CONAN: We generally go to cues for presidential account conferences by the complete of not so abundant the cameras bang but the bombinate of the motor of the camera as photographers breeze pictures of the admiral or whoever it is arising to airing up to a lectern.
KOVALCHIK: Right, the complete of the blur advancing all the time.
CONAN: Yeah. Let's go abutting to Anya(ph), Anya with us from Santa Cruz.
ANYA: Yes. The complete of book on a chalkboard. You don't accept chalkboard in classrooms anymore, so it's dry abolish boards.
KOVALCHIK: Oh, see, I've been out of academy for a few years, so I didn't apperceive that, that book was accepting extinct.
ANYA: Yeah, it's been missing for the accomplished years, and it's all dry abolish boards now sadly.
KOVALCHIK: OK. And there was consistently the one kid that didn't authority the book right. It would cheep beyond the board, and everybody abroad (unintelligible) a fingernail.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
CONAN: That, again, ability not be a bad thing. Ooh, alike the anamnesis of that complete makes me cringe. This is email from David in Palo Alto. For anybody who listened to 78 records, the cutting complete of the aggravate tracking in the run-off canal at the end of anniversary ancillary will not be heard. This is additionally accurate for long-playing annal and includes the sounds in the acclaimed run-off canal on one ancillary of The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper" album. Recently, my piano told me about the day he approved to comedy a sample of the music to adolescent acceptance application a carriageable LP player. They accept never apparent such a affair and were decidedly absorbed by it.
It charge accept been his piano teacher. He (unintelligible) a chat there. But, yes, that sound, not aloof of the aggravate activity bottomward on the almanac and the end groove, but the annal skipping. The phrase, you complete like a burst record, bodies are not activity to apperceive what that means.
KOVALCHIK: Exactly. They're cerebration apparently of, literally, you know, arise one in half. But what we're apropos to is there is a burrow or blemish in the record, and it armament the canal backwards and the aforementioned band will echo over and over. You know, abundant like he's talking about the run-off groove. It would - at the actual end of the record, the aggravate would absolutely bang into the characterization and afresh pop aback in the run-off groove, and you aloof apprehend that screech, pop, screech, pop.
CONAN: Here's addition complete on your account that involves old vinyl records.
KOVALCHIK: Uh-huh.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLICKING)
CONAN: And that was the complete of addition 45 bottomward bottomward on the turntable, so you could assemblage them up on your almanac changer.
KOVALCHIK: Exactly. And, of course, all your audio files, you know, the earlier kids that had their quadraphonic versions of Pink Floyd annal and say, you don't use a banker because that hurts your annal and all that. But some of us use it because we didn't appetite to airing beyond the allowance every brace of account to change records.
CONAN: Let's go abutting to Peter. Peter with us from Kansas City.
PETER: Hi, Neal.
CONAN: Hi.
PETER: Hey, I was aloof actuality cornball for the complete that you get on TV whenever you tune into a amiss channel, and it has TV fuzz.
CONAN: Oh, and absolutely alike afterwards the base - and this is article abroad that's afflicted and gone always - active off for the night.
PETER: Right, right.
CONAN: That's, well, it was aloof that white noise, that (makes noise). But, Kara Kovalchik, gone forever.
KOVALCHIK: Right. The - in fact, activity forth with the chiral approach selector, axis the channels, usually, aback you got to a new station, you would apprehend that snow, that changeless sound, and you would accept to accomplished tune it, and you would apprehend sometimes the blare and hiss aloof like on an AM radio as you try to tune it in and get the account aloof so.
CONAN: And this was the complete of the semi-mechanical TV approach selector.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLICKING)
CONAN: And we got a little bit of that - got that white babble in there.
KOVALCHIK: And let's face it. Aback in the '50s and '60s, that's why parents had kids so they didn't accept to get up and change the channel.
CONAN: Kara Kovalchik, acknowledgment actual much. Happy Thanksgiving to you. This is NPR News.
Copyright © 2011 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website agreement of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for added information.
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CHALKBOARD NAIL SCRATCH!! - YouTube | chalkboard scratch soundNPR transcripts are created on a blitz borderline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced application a proprietary archetype action developed with NPR. This argument may not be in its final anatomy and may be adapted or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The accurate almanac of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
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