When Sound Hits Your Soul

Ron 0:18

When was the last time a sound didn't just reach your ears, but it touched your soul? And I don't mean music from your headphones. I mean vibrations that not only reach your eardrums, but sounds that literally bounce off everything around you, so pure and so physical that you feel it in your bones. It could be a hundred-piece orchestra swelling together on a grand stage, or the low, steady rumble of a box or twin engine in the dead center of the Rev range, just carrying you over the smoothest open road you can imagine. Oh yeah, that's a very special, unique sound. You know, I think that most of the world these days spends so much of their time surrounded by compressed digital sound coming in through their headphones or even through their stereos at home. I think that we've forgotten what analog sounds like. You remember records? That was analog. Tapes, that was analog too. To take it a step further, I think that so many folks settle for their screens, both small and large, while they're really searching for simulations of a real life experience. Both sights and sounds. Simulations of what you and I experience in real life when we're out on an adventure on our bikes. As you and I know really well, that real high fidelity analog world, it hasn't gone away at all. It hasn't disappeared. You and I know where to find it. It's just waiting for us to fire up our motorcycles and to let the magic begin. So today we're going to talk about sound and how the unique, very real sights and sounds that we experience on a motorcycle take us to a whole new level of reality. And it's a beautiful thing.

The Power Of Live Orchestra

Ron 3:31

Recently, my wife and I attended a concert in Vale, Colorado. We had the chance to see the New York Philharmonic Orchestra perform live, more than a hundred world-class musicians on stage just filling the open-air venue with music. We've seen them before and other orchestras in the past, but this time we splurged and we got really, really good seats right in the middle. And if you've ever sat in front of an orchestra like that, you know what I'm talking about. When the full symphony strikes a chord from the quietest, most delicate bow on the violin string to the roaring crescendo from the brass and the timpani, the air pressure in the room literally changes. You aren't just hearing music, you are existing inside it. It's a raw, physical, high-definition analog reality. And sitting there, I couldn't help but think how rare that feeling is becoming in our modern world.

What Compression Steals From Life

Ron 5:19

So much of how we live today is compressed. We live behind screens, whether it's your TV or your computer or your phone, or we slide on noise-canceling headphones and stream a heavily compressed digital audio file or a movie, and we tell ourselves we're experiencing something. We scroll through high-definition videos of alpine lakes or winding mountain passes, trying to simulate what it feels like to actually do that, to actually be there, to actually experience it. We've become masters of our own virtual world these days, I think. The world that we have total control over, which of course is not reality at all. But on the screen, yeah, we've got control there. We settle for the representation of an experience instead of being part of a real experience. Dangers and all. It flattens the dynamics. I didn't learn this until recently, but a digital file, the softness, well it has to be compressed in such a way. The softness you might say whispers and the loudest peaks, they have to be squeezed together so that they fit neatly inside typically the tiny speakers, either in your ears or on your computer. But real life, unfiltered, uncompressed life, it has an infinite dynamic range. You can't stream acoustic depth. You have to step into the venue.

Motorcycles As Full-Body Audio

Ron 7:57

Yeah, that brings me to what we do on two wheels. Because riding a motorcycle isn't just transportation for most of us, it's a full-body, total immersion sensory event. It's a hundred percent analog. Think about what happens the second that you pull out of the driveway. Whether you're riding through town at 30 miles an hour or sitting at steady at 70 miles an hour down the open highway, there's no filter between you and the environment at all. We aren't watching the road through a windshield even. The mechanical hum turns into a steady, confident purr of a well-tuned engine. And the wind becomes this force pushing against your jacket, pushing against your head a little bit. The tires sing a new a new song, high speed chord against the road surface. That's a good word, of the pavement is communicated through your handlebars, through your feet, straight into your brain. It's this high fidelity sound, high fidelity motion, and it's this physical truth. You can't fake it, you can't simulate it at all, and you can't stream it. It's just all around you, and you're part of it, and that is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Thunder By The Stream

Ron 10:44

Just yesterday I experienced that full immersion deep into the mountains. Miles down a forest road where the pavement gives way to dirt and it gives way to silence. I pulled the bike over near a mountain stream, and then I pulled out my portable chair from my saddlebag. I set up the chair under the tree and cracked open my water bottle, took a sip, and I just sat back and looked up. I watched the wind moving through the very tops of those pine trees. I watched the high altitude clouds drifting across the deepest blue sky. And then, far off over the next ridge, I heard it. That low, rolling rumble of a distant summer thunderstorm. It was such a deep sound. I felt it. And interestingly enough, it felt almost identical to that orchestra at Vale. It wasn't loud in a harsh way at all, but it was vast. It filled the sky. It filled the forest with sound. Every animal and me heard it. I think it shook the mountain air. It was nature's orchestra playing in an acoustic room with a ceiling made of clouds and walls made of granite and timber. Hmm.

Presence, Risk, And Real Space

Ron 13:09

But the bike does something different, doesn't it? A motorcycle strips away the glass entirely. It forces us to be present in a physical space that's way bigger than we are. A space that we don't know what's gonna happen next, and we think that that's a pretty good thing. Whether it's a hundred musicians on a stage in Vale, creating the swell of sound that vibrates through your chest, riding down a mountain highway, feeling the pulse of the engine and the wind in your face, and or just sitting by a stream listening to a thunder echo through a canyon wall. Those moments ground us to the real physical world. The one that Mother Nature's a part of, where we can hear her voice, right? So I guess the message for you is the same message I'm trying to tell myself. Don't settle for a digital copy. Turn off the streaming, unplug the earplugs, get on two wheels, and go find your acoustic space. Yeah, go find your happy place. Wherever that may be a lot of people, I'm just gonna be a mistake.

Happy Place, Gratitude, And Support

Ron 14:53

Honestly, three years ago, I didn't think I would have two episodes. I really had no idea where topics were going to come from. But I think if I did anything right, I just love riding my motorcycle for sure. But I'm talking with other motorcycle riders to hear why they love to ride. And I'm spending a lot of time on my bike for sure. Sometimes riding with friends, but mostly alone out in the mountains. It's how I find my happy place. It's how I find my peace of mind sometimes. And it was under those trees for this episode, hearing that thunder way out in the middle of nowhere, no cell phone service, as my wife reminds me. It's where I got the idea for this episode. It was just sitting there taking it all in, hearing the thunder after we had heard the uh New York Philharmonic. Oh, yeah, there was a comparison there. Interesting how that works. Well, anyway, as always, I want to thank you for listening and for telling your friends. I want to thank my friends also at Viking Bags for their products, support of this podcast, and if you too would like to be a supporter, just check the show notes for uh options for supporting the show if you'd like. But until we visit again, write easy, stay present, keep listening, and I wish you peace, and I wish you love. Take care, my friends.