A Collection of Pleasant Sounds

This column is dedicated to all the sounds that give us pleasure.

My appreciation of pleasant sounds is restricted a bit by my hearing loss. Even with my hearing aids, some sounds don’t sound exactly like they did when I was younger. When I was in my teens and 20s, I would go to see (and hear) such loud rockers as The Who, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. I’d also crank up the stereo, including in my headphones and the car. My dad would tell me I needed to turn the music down, or I’d lose my hearing. I said it sounded better loud and that I would just get hearing aids later in life if I needed them. Which I did, and it really isn’t that bad.

Could some of it be hereditary? My mother’s hearing, even with hearing aids, is worse than mine, and I don’t remember seeing her at the Jefferson Airplane concert at Kiel Auditorium. She also never had a summer job operating a jackhammer, at least to my best recollection.

Here are at least some of the most pleasant sounds in life:

When we were children, usually, the security and comfort of Mother’s (or Dad’s, but often, especially, Mother’s) soothing voice was likely the most pleasant sound in our little world.

A few years later — though we may have liked school — the ringing of the final bell of the afternoon usually brought a welcome feeling of freedom.

Physicists say humans cannot hear snow falling. But then, what is that sublime, mysterious sound, like water crystals touching down on the wind when everything else is silent? The Japanese have a word for it: shinshin (pronounced sheen-sheen).

Sometimes, as a storm moves on, off in the far distance, you can still hear the last audible rumble, what Pink Floyd called the “Delicate Sound of Thunder.”

One of the most delightful sounds from childhood was the magical, Pied Piper-like tinkling of a distinctive bell. I’m talking about the ice cream man! Mr. Softee! He didn’t come around every day. It was unpredictable; but the instant we heard those bells and the motorized purr of his white serving van, about every kid in the neighborhood raced to hastily and urgently plead their case to their parents as to why they should get a couple of quarters or at least a few dimes or nickels. And please hurry, because he only stayed for so long. Then the kids descended from up on the hills, running like wild ponies down into the ice cream canyon.

In some ways, the best moment of a concert is the beginning, the first time you hear, say, the rich, vibrating tones of the acoustic guitar or the singer’s actual voice with all its live presence and purity beyond the recorded version. You’re captured by the moment.

Winter brings some wonderful sounds; one of the best is when your car engine turns over on a frozen morning, and you can actually see your sigh of relief in the air.

A great sound for a golfer is when she sinks a long putt and hears, in the words of writer George Plimpton, the ball’s “distant but authoritative rattle.”

Tonight, just outside my window, I hear a calm, slow, easy, pulsing croak, every several seconds. It’s nature’s solitary soloist of the evening: a frog. It seems this time, it really is easy being green.

Silence was usually something to be avoided when I was a kid. It was boring. Nowadays, it can have its own value, a relief from the repetitive, annoying commercials and background noises of everyday life that sometimes bring creeping stress. I turn to my wife and remark on how we, at that moment, finally have some blessed silence. I guess this shows I’m getting old. Now, I like many sounds in life — in fact, I enjoy them immensely. But to borrow at least the title of an old Boomer song, I have finally made friends with the sounds of silence.