Suggest a place

Do you have a suggestion for a place that should be included? Sonicwonders.org is not a Wiki, it’s an edited web page, so you need to send me details for inclusion. Please use the comment box below to suggest a place. To be included I need to know:

  • What makes the sound of the place noteworthy and suitable for the website – what does it sound like, what creates the sound effect and why is that interesting?
  • Exactly where the place is
  • Suggested tags
  • Suggested categories: current list: nature, manmade (and other unnatural), architectural, echo
  • If you want to be credited on the page, please give your name

Additional information which make the entry more interesting and save me some work!

  • Soundfiles, youtube video links and pictures (please check copyright and give details of required acknowledgements)
  • Sites on sonicwonders.org which have similar sound effects
  • Good times of the year/day to hear the sounds (if applicable)
  • Logistics for visitors – opening hours, getting there etc. (preferably just a link to the site’s website with these details)

210 thoughts on “Suggest a place”

  1. The Tholoi, a.k.a. beehive tombs in various places in the Mediterranean and West Asia.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tholoi

    Perhaps the most well known ones are the tombs of Mycenae Greece, of which I have experienced the acoustics myself. Because of their “false” dome shape and stone surface they have a special echo. Instead a few long echos it has many short ones, depending on where you stand. Even the ones that are open at the top have this. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any youtube clips which do the acoustics of the tholoi justice, but here’s one of singing:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TFGNj95N00&feature=related

  2. Don’t know what the phenomenon is called, nor could I find it online anywhere. At the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, there is a monument whereby if you stand in the middle of it and you speak, you hear an echo right above you. No one around you hears the echo, except you standing in that spot. I have also seen/heard it at a parliament building in Regina… I think. Someone online called it the Wyman circle or Echo circle; I haven’t found any reference of it online. Can anyone shed some light on this phenomenon.
    Thanks.

  3. Dear Trevor,

    do you consider to add great concert halls to your list – eventually?
    If so, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, the Chicago Symphony Center, the Musikverein in Vienna and the Suntory Hall in Tokyo.
    Am more than happy to send you the links.

    Kind regards from Munich, where we have numerous acoustic phenomena in the alps.
    Maxi

  4. In Philadelphia, USA, there is a monument to Pennsylvania’s civil war military and naval heroes, the Smith Memorial Arch. Flanking either side of the arch are stone benches. They work in the same way as the whispering gallery in St Paul’s Cathedral in London. The monument is in the West Fairmount Park and totally accesible. The tourist buses stop nearby so you can hop off and have a go.

    Tags: architectural / manmade

    http://www.visitphilly.com/music-art/philadelphia/smith-memorial-arch/
    http://www.ushistory.org/oddities/whispering.htm
    http://www.chss.iup.edu/kpatrick/Phila-AC.shtml

  5. 1. Any rainforest where howler monkeys live. The sound of a Howler monkey in the morning is something spectacular to be a party to.

    2. Iguacu Falls, Argentina/Brazil & Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe/Zambia. Two places where the sounds of rushing falling water drown out everything else.

  6. My name is Osvaldo, I study Acoustics Civil Engineering in the Universidad Austral de Chile (Valdivia, south of Chile) and I think you might be interested in a sound phenomena produced in a little town in the north of Chile.

    It’s a big wall with salt rocks, located in San Pedro de Atacama, a very concurred touristic region of my country. The problem is that I spend most of the year in the south but every year I travel to Iquique, in the north (were I was raised) so I can visit that wall this summer for recording the phenomena for you. And of course for visiting once again that extraordinary region (strongly recommended if you want to have some good vacations).
    The interesting thing about this wall is that when there’s a strong change in the temperature (dawn and dask) the thermal expansion and contraction of the salted rocks generates amazing sounds, like thousand of stones crushing one to another (or something like that. Difficult to explain).
    Anyway, if you are interested just let me know.
    Greetings, and thank you and D’Antonio for the “Acoustics Absorbers and Diffusers”! Has been very helpful!

  7. 1) Great idea; hope you find many more locations; I must think hard; mainly wanted to say “well done” from this retired lifelong pro recording engineer and sound enthusiast.
    2) Sure you must be aware of this:
    http://www.silophone.net/eng/about/desc.html
    Feed voice or program material via Net or telephone; it is broadcast through disused grain silo complex in Montreal, ‘A quarter of a mile long and over twenty storeys high’; one gets back the output of this largish 🙂 echo chamber.
    All the best, C.F. No reply expected/needed.

  8. Origins in the 80’s with Exploratorium see web page. Depends on waves obviously but always interesting if not dramatic

  9. Uniqe opportunity to walk through road tunnel without traffic. (Rijeka, Croatia)
    Tunnel is finished but for various reason not in funktion.
    Massive silence and long rich reverberation with clear echoes in the middle of the tunnel.
    Info about construction & location of this manmade construction:
    hrcak.srce.hr/file/40992
    tags: road tunnel, concrete, reverberation, echoes
    Soundwalk & trumpet inside
    http://aporee.org/maps/work/link.php?id=4235

  10. Another silence place is the coloured canyon, Sinai, Egypt. We went early in the day in the summer a few years ago and there were very few people about, so when we paused for a few moments in the depths of the canyon, there was no wind and you could hear absolutely nothing. The trip was one of the tours available from our hotel on the nearby red sea coast (Gulf of Aqaba side of Sinai). Oh, it looks pretty good too.

  11. Male Bitterns booming at Ham Wall, Somerset.

    There were fears that the bittern may be heading for extinction in the UK, but this spring there are 6 booming bitterns in the newly created RSPB wetland site of Ham Wall.

    Spent two amazing nights there over Easter!!

    Best wishes

    John.

  12. Waking up in the morning near or on the tidal flats of The Netherlands (the Wadden) fills your head with the sounds of wading birds forraging for food on the flats. Together with the smell of silt and sulfer it is an memory to last more than a lifetime.

  13. Nature
    Fish Lake,
    An upper tributary on the watershed of
    the South Umpqua River in Southern Oregon (US)
    The water is deep & cold there.
    We camped a few nights there during a dry year in Feb. and the lake was frozen over.
    At night the wind would shift and force air through cracks in the frozen surface
    and create an eerie, low humming, groaning noise that spooked the hell out of us
    until we figured out what it was.
    That same trip a big branch from a huge pine broke off in the wind and fell about 50 feet from our camp.
    I was jumpy after that and refused to sleep in the tent that night.
    I could hear the wind approaching through the timber and then blow through our camp and move away in gusts.
    Needless to say I didn’t get much rest that night.
    The experience was unforgettable.
    The first time we were there we found elk sign all over the trail.
    There were prints, scat and even the scent.
    A small herd must have crossed the trail just before we got there.
    I was told a WW 2 bomber crash landed on the surface one winter and before it could be dismantled the thaw came and the plane went
    to the bottom.
    I tried to find mention of it on the internet but my kung fu failed in the google keyword department.
    It was an incredibly beautiful place.

  14. Do you know about audio illusions or audio paradoxes?
    Have a look via google by using the above two terms. One remarkeble example I remember is a sound generated digitally that appear to go down in pitch but does not. Different peaks of frequencies move within an envalope that has the shape of a bell curve.
    There is also a CD with this kind of stuff called ‘Diana Deutsch’s Audio Illusions’.

  15. Hi Trevor…heard you on BBC World Service…Science in Action?…still available if anyone missed it.
    I came across this…http://www.charlottecooper.net/docs/travel/lanz3.htm
    from Lanzarote. Scroll down to the walk around the volcano (dormant) rim. Also the Manrique wind toys do sing, but primarily it’s the movement and play on light.
    Good luck, great site. Jim

  16. Nature. You have got to hear it. Sounds maybe like the last deep gurggles of a very deep bathtub just draining out.

    All you need to know at:
    http://www.elephantseal.org/index.htm

    Piedras Blancas, on California highway 1 at the southern end of Big Sur.

    Starting in early December, during mating/calving season, maybe 6-8 weeks. It is most amazing place. You are extremely close to these giants. And it is not just the alphas. Babies, juveniles and cows all make quite a racket.

    Via email from Jim

  17. This is a suggestion for the sound of the lack of sound. It was the most eerie experience I’ve ever had. There is a campsite on the side of a lake at Yellowstone National Park called Wrangler Lake. Because the environment is very sulphuric from the geological activity, there are hardly any small animals, birds or bugs (other than thousands of mosquitoes at dusk) in the area. It is also a rather sheltered if that somehow helps. All this creates complete and utter silence. Nothing. It is also especially fun to create echoes in this area at night, they go for a long time. I don’t know if my explanation does this justice, but visiting this place was one of the best sound experiences of my life so I thought it might fit.

  18. There is a man made Mayan hallway that is thought to be the first first physical recorded sound. When you make a tap or a clap in the hallway it produces what is almost exactly the call of the Quetzal bird, a sacred bird to the Mayans.
    An engineering Miracle that others should hear.

  19. Via email: some time ago a friend of mine told me about the “way of silence”, in the small island of S.Giulio on Lake Orta. http://www.orta.net/eng1/indipendent.html

    The “way of silence” is a path that goes aroun the island, with plaques to help the listening experience that sound like typical soundwalk instructions. The nice bit is that, when one walks the other way round, the back of the plaques give a different message: this is called “the way of meditation”.

    Some pictures of the latter on http://tre-chiavi-inglesi-in-dubbio.blogspot.com/2007/08/la-via-del-silenzio.html
    (don’t be blogged by the Italian, look at the pictures!)

    All the best,
    Gianluca Memoli

  20. Hello Trevor,
    I recently heard a very interesting acoustic effect at James Turrell’s SkySpace installation in Kielder Forest…

    http://www.forestry.gov.uk/website/ourwoods.nsf/LUWebDocsByKey/EnglandNorthumberlandKielderKielderKielderCastleForestParkCentreSkyspace

    The installation is intended to be a visual experience, but by the nature of it’s shape and location it does quirky auditory things too.
    What both my wife and I heard is that standing just within the main dome in front of the entrance tunnel sounds emanating from the left side of you (eg rustling of clothes) is heard through your right ear and vice versa. A very strange effect, I guess this could happen in a whispering gallery too?
    Regards,
    Dave Ward MIOA Salford Graduate 1998

  21. Hi,
    I’d like to suggest litophones i.e. bell stones (aka ringing stones or gong stones) to appear on your website. Once hit, these stones produce a sound similar to glockenspiel. Here are some links to videos and audio presenting the phenomenon:
    1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp6P_hBnF1s&feature=related [Starts around 5:20]
    2. http://lithophones.com/index.php?id=2
    3. http://www.landscape-perception.com/acoustic_mapping/
    4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithophone [More links to other websites documenting it]
    Cheers,
    tom

  22. “The first notes in the longest and slowest piece of music in history, designed to go on for 639 years, are being played on a German church organ on Wednesday.

    The three notes, which will last for a year-and-a-half, are just the start of the piece, called As Slow As Possible.

    Composed by late avant-garde composer John Cage, who died in 1992, the performance has already been going for 17 months – although all that has been heard so far is the sound of the organ’s bellows being inflated….”

  23. Location: Loona manor, Vilsandi National Park, island of Saaremaa, Estonia, the Baltics Europe.

    Voice: gray seals, sea eagles,
    Tag: Nationa Parks, Estonia
    Suggested categories: nature, wildlife

    Vilsandi national park is the oldest nature protection area in the Baltics and also in former Czarist Russia, 2nd oldest sanctuary in Europe celebrating it´s 100th anniversary this year of 2010. Main attractions: sea birds (stelles elder etc), wild orchids (36 species), open banklines with Silurian fossil founds, rich and well preserved coastal culture, gray seals.
    Activites: http://www.looduskalender.ee/en/
    – gray seal camera
    Good times of the year – all year round, winter, Jan- March is the best,
    Logistics for visitors – contact National Park visitor center Loona manor http://www.camploona.ee
    http://www.heritagetours.ee

  24. The Piazza at Warwick University is known amongst students to have a disturbing effect: if you stand at the centre of the concentric concrete seats and speak, a series of echoes with a delay between ~10ms – ~30ms are heard. The same effect as Greek theatres, but the close proximity of the seats and the focussing of the sound means these are loud enough to be heard as distinct echoes when they would normally be integrated into one sound.

    Exact location:
    CV4 7AL

    Suggested tags:
    Architecture, echo, focussing, Haas effect

    Category:
    Architectural

    Photo:
    http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/communications/medialibrary/images/aug06/mms_1650e13989cdf30f00901d1f138738fe.jpg

  25. Beit Guvrin caves in Israel, and the Bell Cave in particular have a very unique sound. The natural stone diffuseness combined with multiple decays due to some coupled spaces make this a very interesting sounding place.

    Some photos online by Elroyie David:
    http://www.pbase.com/elroyie/beit_guvrin_caves

    Official Website:
    http://www.parks.org.il/BuildaGate5/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~20~~131474600~Card12~&ru=&SiteName=parks&Clt=&Bur=107338438

    Keywords: Archealogical,

  26. The multi-storey car park next to the Milton Keynes Theatre is a fantastic place! After a concert, when everyone else has gone, and with the right wind conditions, you can hear the most fantastic example of wind generated noise from the structure of the car park.

    Suggest you stand inside on the ground floor. It sounds very ‘other worldly’ and ethereal. Oh yeah, the concert hall’s not bad either!

  27. From the other side of the pond, there is a whispering gallery at Grand Central Station in front of the famous Oyster Bar & Restaurant. The low ceramic arches, built for the 1913 opening of Grand Central, are designed in such a perfect way that if two people stand at diagonal arches and whisper into a corner, they should be able to hear each other as if they were face to face – not far across the way.

    http://http://www.newyorkology.com/archives/2005/02/the_whispering_1.php

  28. From Tony Woolf on alt.sci.physics.acoustics
    An obvious suggestion is the ancient Greek theatre at Epidavros (Epidaurus) in the southern Peleponnese. The guides will tell you that there is
    something magic about the acoustics, and demonstrate that you can clearly hear a coin dropped in the centre of the “orchestra” (stage) in the back row. Personally I don’t find this particularly amazing. However if you stand in the coin-dropping spot and clap your hands, the flutter echo from the tiered rows of seats is quite impressive.

    1. Adding Burnley sculpture which I must visit as its so close!
      Not sure about Sibelius because there is nothing to hear. Might add it, but not a priority at the moment

  29. Don’t forget St.Andrews, Wiveliscombe. They are quite proud of their acoustics both in the church (superb acoustics!) and the crypt, which they will open and demonstrate to enquiring visitors. The crypt was also the storage place for the Crown Jewels during WW II.

  30. There is a disused railway bridge spanning the Cam Brook near Midford (south of Bath) where the focussing effect of the arch reflects the sound
    of the stream running over stones as though it is coming from the sky. I sometimes lead walks along the Somersetshire Coal Canal and always make a point of detouring to let members of the party hear this interesting phenomenon.

    Grid reference ST 756604 The effect occurs in a very small area about 3 metres east of the westernmost abutment, you have to search for it.

    Access to the site is by means of a public footpath which follows the course of the Somersetshire Coal Canal from Midford to Combe Hay. Where the railway embankment blocks the canal, the footpath takes a detour through the railway arch.

    Another absolute ‘must’ is the crypt of St. Andrews Church, Wiveliscombe,
    Somerset. It is completely circular with hard painted walls and a handclap twangs for several seconds like a very bad springline reverb
    unit.

  31. Hello Trevor, I am very much thrilled by your proposal and I am tempted to list a few places that seem worth including. … places to add would be: Niagara Falls, any desert at night (the absolute quietness), Epidavros Theatre in Greece. … regards, Paul

  32. I am not sure if it fits into your plans, and I have not personally heard for myself, but some recent research in preparation for a possible holiday
    in the Canaries, reminded me of the strange “whistling language” – Silbo – on the small island of La Gomera

  33. My suggestion is Manchester Central Libaray. It is a large round building, and the main reading area has a dome ceiling. Any sound produced in there is amplified to the point where you hear quite well anywhere in the space. It is moderately reverberant but you hear a very clear first echo. An interesting location to test would be right in the centre but unfortunately that is reserved for the support desk so you can’t access it (unless you work there).
    It is here:
    St Peter’s Square, M2 5PD, Manchester, UK

    TAGS: Architectural, echo
    Visitors:
    http://www.manchester.gov.uk/directory_record/3962/central_library

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