What Sound Looks Like

A post shared by Marc Weidenbaum (@dsqt) on Jun 19, 2015 at 4:34pm PDT

Most of my doorbell photographs are taken outside of buildings. This one was taken inside a friend’s house. When I rang the bell by pressing a button outside his front door, there was an unfamiliar delay before the bell was audible. The bell wasn’t so quiet as to suggest it was ringing from deep in the house. There was simply first a decidedly extended pause, two beats passing in silence before there was a response. After being let in, I took off my shoes in the foyer, and I saw on the floor three long, narrow metal tubes of varying lengths. The doorbell itself was attached high on the wall, its innards exposed: just one tube, hanging off center. I asked my friend what was going on. He explained that the doorbell was loud, very loud, regal in its fancy grandfather-clock mode. His housemates had decided to remove the three loudest of the four chimes. The result is that the first two chimes are triggered, but since there’s no tube on either, we don’t hear anything. Only when the third bell rings does the person who pushes the doorbell button get confirmation that the inhabitant has been alerted to their arrival.