Rhythmic Randomness – Large Scale and Small Scale

Some examples of Rhythmic Randomness:

The Seasons:

The concept of Rhythmic Randomness can be applied to weather to gain a better understanding of it. If you live at mid latitudes, you experience yearly seasons and in any particular month you know basically what kind of weather to expect because of the yearly rhythm. For example, I have a good idea of what the temperature in July will be like, even though I am writing this in October. However, the weather for any particular day, such as a daily high temperature, the amount of precipitation, will it be cloudy or clear, is unpredictable even a month in advance because there are so many factors that come into play, that there is a high degree of randomness. Even the temperatures and rainfall in any particular July can differ by quite a bit and can still be considered “normal” if not “average”. In the case of weather, the closer you look at the details, as in daily details, the more random the situation gets from one year to the next.

Crystals:

If you look at a crystalline structure, the effect is the opposite. If you look at the over all crystalline structure, the outer shape will often appear somewhat haphazard and random. As you examine closer more details of the structure, there is less randomness and the rhythm or repetition of the precise structure becomes more evident, and you can see precise geometry dictating the structure. It is the outer shape of the three dimensional edges of the crystal where more randomness is observed.

Water Wave Sounds:

Waves have a very regular rhythm. However, there is a degree of randomness in their timing that adds another dimension. There is also randomness in their height and shape that changes not only how they appear, but also how they sound. These subtle differences, the randomness, serve to engage that part of the mind that processes the senses.Compare different Wave Sounds at Nature Sounds.ca.

How Rhythmic Randomness Effects Us:

If that randomness is taken out, and the sound of water waves is changed to be exactly equally timed, and with the occurrence of each wave sounding the same as the wave before it, then the result becomes quite tedious to listen to. One can listen to such a recording for only a short length of time before it starts to become dull, even irritating. It will be fatiguing rather than refreshing. The difference between the two sounds is the presence of rhythmic randomness. That is why machine generated white noise, or using loops to generate white noise, is ultimately not as soothing and calming as naturally recorded white noise, or in other words, as sounds recorded from nature.

Karl Hamilton BFA
Nature Sounds.ca
www.naturesounds.ca
www.youtube.com/NatureSoundsCa