Those damned vuvuzelas

It seems they had come to hate everything. Annoying voice of the African pipe-vuvuzel accompanies every minute of every broadcast from the current soccer season. A specialist in the field of acoustics comments, why the sound is so controversial.
Vuvuzela - the tool is not ancient. Metal and plastic horn usually about a meter in length appeared in the late twentieth century, and it is in South Africa, which instantly became popular among fans. On passing there vuvuzela championship already possible to declare a winner. Some aspects of their sound acoustics examines the UK Trevor Cox (Trevor Cox).

Sound
Konstruktsionnno vuvuzela horn is a rectification, playing in which a man like snorts into her mouthpiece. This lips vibrate at a frequency of about 235 times per second, blowing through a pipe sealed "clumps" of air that resonate with the air in the conical bell.
If it plays an experienced musician, the sound of her like a hunting horn, but when playing an ordinary person the sound is less pleasant, because it does not know how to relax the lips and let out the air with sufficient unevenness that makes small jumps in frequency and more like voices of the trumpet of an elephant .





But when vuvuzela dudyat while hundreds of inexperienced people, it ceases to be the same even on an elephant. You can hear the hum of rough uneven vibrating and resounding tone, then growing, then decreasing, it is more similar to the sound of a swarm of giant insects.

Volume
The volume provides a vuvuzela bell shape, smooth cone rashiryayuschiysya abruptly to an end. In addition to creating a sound at a frequency of 235 Hz, the tool generates and harmonic tones to complement this basic, the lowest. For vuvuzelas shows pronounced harmonic frequencies 470, 700, 940, 1171, 1400 and 1630 Hz.
Slowly expanding the socket provides a much more high-profile high-frequency harmonics than if it expanded strict cone. Namely, to the sounds of higher frequencies our ears are especially susceptible. For example, why has a similar shape saxophone sounds much louder clarinet
At a distance of 1 m vuvuzelas sound reaches 116 decibels, so a long its effect is quite dangerous for the hearing that has been shown in studies by South African scientists. For example, the sound of only one such pipe in just 7-22 seconds exceed the maximum noise standards for working premises. But what makes the whole crowd "vuvuzelistov" - all the more dangerous



Irritation

Generally, loud sounds are perceived more annoying. The rumor - is generally an early warning system, it is designed to highlight sudden changes in the sound background, the changes that may indicate a potential danger while trying to ignore the ever-present noise. When the noise is loud and continuous, as the "choir" of hundreds of thousands of vuvuzelas, a situation to which our ears do not fit, get used to it very difficult. Even more annoying sound vuvuzel makes it continuously oscillating frequency. Our auditory system is even more difficult to isolate the sound and ignore it.

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