Strange Aural Phenomena
Wednesday, October 10th, 2007I was watching the third episode of the last season of The Sopranos. Somebody gets shot on the street in that episode. As they show a close-up of the body a female scream is heard in the background. Fair enough. I only got the distinct feeling that I’ve heard it before, and I have. It was on a music piece by a local indie artist and I’ve certain I’ve heard it elsewhere as well. Now I’ve concrete evidence instead a vague feeling.
This is not an isolated incident. I seem to notice that the sound of door opening in television in many occasions sound familiar. The particular sound that I recognize I’ve heard in some computer game, probably Half-Life.
Even with this meagre empiric evidence I’ve convinced that this is a real phenomena, reusing sound samples beyond ridiculousness. Why does it happen? Is it so hard to come up with a sound sample library big enough to make running into familiar sounds improbable enough? Or is this just an unlikely coincidence? Does it happen for copyright reasons?
Why should we care anyway? Well, for one, it quickly disposes the suspension of disbelief. It is also highly annoying, partly because I don’t know why it happens?! WHY?!