Noise is a constant, it is around us and sometimes the noise is something we like and we want it loud, others times the noise is something we do not want and we want it quiet. An interesting book which looks at the subject is the book Noise – A Human History of Sound and Listening by David Henry, HarperCollins, NY, 2013. The book is based on the radio program which ran on the BBC in England. To start at the beginning during prehistoric times – the noise was largely from nature. Every animal makes a sound, people tended to live in caves and they resonate. Where they resonate more is where the art is to be found. Nobody is certain if the artists knew the principles of the sound and where the art is but the theory works where art and caves are to be found.

The desire to talk and listen to people is the reason for the world to keep using mobile phones, long before the invention, people in Ghana were communicating with drums. They would send out the equivalent of a Morse Code to talk to others for both safety and normal conversation. Once the tones of the drum are learnt, the drums can send out multiple messages.

If you been to a forest and spent a little time, you will quickly learn the sounds of the forest. If you been there for a longer time, you can develop where you are by sounds you hear. There is a distinctive sound based on the geology, climate and wildlife. Added to the sounds is the wind which changes as the wind increases and decreases.

From nature we move to people and story telling. One of the methods we learn our values and principles is through story telling. Whether it be a story teller in school or the library or at home to going to the market and listening to storytelling at coffee houses. An interesting story is the one about the ancient theatre at Epidaurus in southern Greece. The setting is beautifully symmetrical gently sloping auditorium which could seat 14,000. The open air building cuts out the risk of interfering reverberation. This means voices from the stage roll up to the audience and high frequency sounds of the actors are amplified as they go. The juicy part of the story is the plays depended on the listening of the audience, and the actors had to be very good to keep the audience engaged. If they were not, the audiences would become restless and be disruptive. Audience participation was as much as part of the performance as the actors on the stage.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in many of the examples noise is seen as background but in reality it is integral part of the landscape. For example, we look at the hills and trees changing but with the trees is a whole host of things happening and noises being made. For a company to continue to pay a dividend it has to be getting the little things right, as well as the big ones. It takes the understanding the noise of the consumer to offer feedback and to continuously improve the business. A book such as Noise offers us the ability to think about a section of life and how it can play a bigger part in our everyday life.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions