So back when the part aired where Mr. C shoots Ray and sends him to the Lodge, I was struck by the sound of the owl ring hitting the floor of the Lodge. Just something about its timbre reminded me strongly of the tone Benjamin Horne heard in the Great Northern (and in the basement and Coop's hospital room). In particular, based on my own noodling around with experimental music on the side, it struck me that the sound of the ring might be the sound source for the tone, or vice versa. I filed it in the back of my head, and was curious if any connection would be made by season's close, but it obviously didn't happen and I forgot to look into it any further. Well, until tonight.
I was finally checking out Dean Hurley's Anthology Resource Vol. 1 △△ (a really cool comp of his sound work for TPTR if you haven't seen it, available on his Bandcamp), and lo and behold, track 6, entitled "Tone / Slow Speed Prison / Low Mood" actually has the sound of the ring dropping on the floor ("Tone") seguing directly into the tone from the Great Northern et al. ("Slow Speed Prison")! Needless to say, my initial curiosity was suddenly piqued into overdrive, and I started mucking about with manipulating the sound of the ring dropping on the floor to match that of the "Slow Speed Prison."
Although I wasn't able to get them to match exactly, I feel like I got the timbre and pitch quite close to each other considering my limited resources, just by slowing down "Tone" to re-pitch it. Maybe I'm crazy, but I swear at the speed I took it down to, you can hear the "Slow Speed Prison" within the more complex palette of "Tone." I applied a bit of EQ to try and isolate it further, but just can't quite get there. Here's some clips so you can compare and check it out yourself:
- clip of the tone from the Great Northern
- clip of the ring hitting the floor
- ring slowed down, before adding EQ
- ring slowed down, with EQ
So, either a track used to create the sound of the owl ring was slowed down in isolation to create the Great Northern tone, or the Great Northern tone was sped up and included as a track within the owl ring sound. I'm leaning towards the former, since the Great Northern tone is actually called "Slow Speed Prison" on Anthology Resource.
As for what that all means? Or at least, could mean? Not entirely sure, but it sure as hell feels ominous if that tone is the sound of the ring at a slower speed. And it being at a slower speed would seem to potentially jibe with what we've seen of time being broken, and potentially proceeding at different rates, in and around the Lodges. Such as potentially intersecting somehow with Coop's overlay face proceeding at a slower rate of time compared to the events unfolding in the Sheriff's office in Part 17.
Really interesting - definitely seems plausible to me. Might possibly help explain Ben Horne's reference to "the ring out of a monastery bell" in part 9, which I always thought was a weird way of putting it (why not just say "the sound of a monastery bell" or suchlike?)
I'm a musician with some good audio physics knowledge, and my first thought when reading your post was:
While they probably used a specific monastery bell for the Great Northern tone, they used whatever studios use to fake the sound of metal dropping, and both these sounds will be metallic, with waveforms that feature similar resonances.
But then I listened to your sound files!!!! Bravo!!! I could definitely see them using the same initial sound and manipulating it, like Lynch speeds/slows/reverses audio/video all the time.
What does it mean? The fun begins. My first thought: Imagine that the sex magick theory is true and Cooper sacrificed himself going into the Odessa world to take Carrie back to Palmer house and destroy Judy (or make sure she was destroyed).
We would assume Cooper to be a Buddhist monk, but maybe this "monastic bell" alludes to Christian monks who sacrifice themselves to follow God's calling? Or someone with a better handle on Tibetan history and Buddhism might be able to explain how self sacrifice could tie to Tibetan monks.
This is all to say that even though the ring has been a weapon to force people into the black lodge, good people who took the ring (Desmond and presumably Jeffries) were doing it while searching for good. Perhaps for Cooper, the ring presents martyrdom. ???? I have no clue. Let's be happy the Joneses are all together at home.
Hi Jesse,
maybe you're the right person to help me. Can you compare the ringing sound in the Great Northern/Coop's hospital room with the ringtone of that unanswered phone call at Carrie's house? I don't have the knowledge or tools to do it, but I hear some kind of resemblance there. Is it the frequency? I'm a music lover but also a audio ignorant, so I don't have the slightest clue how to do it.
Maybe Cooper was supposed to answer that phone call. Mr. C was withdrawn from the Dutchman via telephone. What if Cooper had answered to that call?
Someone noticed that the frequency of the humming sound was around 430hz. If (big if) the ringtone had the same frequency, maybe that's what the Fireman meant when he said "Remember 430". Who knows...
Hi Jesse,
maybe you're the right person to help me. Can you compare the ringing sound in the Great Northern/Coop's hospital room with the ringtone of that unanswered phone call at Carrie's house? I don't have the knowledge or tools to do it, but I hear some kind of resemblance there. Is it the frequency? I'm a music lover but also a audio ignorant, so I don't have the slightest clue how to do it.
Maybe Cooper was supposed to answer that phone call. Mr. C was withdrawn from the Dutchman via telephone. What if Cooper had answered to that call?
Someone noticed that the frequency of the humming sound was around 430hz. If (big if) the ringtone had the same frequency, maybe that's what the Fireman meant when he said "Remember 430". Who knows...
Hiya Octavio,
First, about the 430 hz: I was one of those believers, but I was dead wrong! The Great Northern ringing is actually 1159 hz, which is an Eb, kinda the most dissonant possible choice with 430 (roughly an A). So the precise frequency of the ringing bell doesn't tie to the Fireman's clues.
Umm, I don't know about how to extract audio from Showtime's stream; I'm not quite that tech savvy, but I might rig up an in/out to record some of these bits and then manipulate them....
Red's coin toss!! That's another ringing sound that might maybe relate to this audio. I'd like to find out! Thanks for your other suggestions too!
PS. Looks like the forum has been attacked by a mysterious negative entity.
Hi Jesse,
maybe you're the right person to help me. Can you compare the ringing sound in the Great Northern/Coop's hospital room with the ringtone of that unanswered phone call at Carrie's house? I don't have the knowledge or tools to do it, but I hear some kind of resemblance there. Is it the frequency? I'm a music lover but also a audio ignorant, so I don't have the slightest clue how to do it.
Maybe Cooper was supposed to answer that phone call. Mr. C was withdrawn from the Dutchman via telephone. What if Cooper had answered to that call?
Someone noticed that the frequency of the humming sound was around 430hz. If (big if) the ringtone had the same frequency, maybe that's what the Fireman meant when he said "Remember 430". Who knows...
Hiya Octavio,
First, about the 430 hz: I was one of those believers, but I was dead wrong! The Great Northern ringing is actually 1159 hz, which is an Eb, kinda the most dissonant possible choice with 430 (roughly an A). So the precise frequency of the ringing bell doesn't tie to the Fireman's clues.
Umm, I don't know about how to extract audio from Showtime's stream; I'm not quite that tech savvy, but I might rig up an in/out to record some of these bits and then manipulate them....
Red's coin toss!! That's another ringing sound that might maybe relate to this audio. I'd like to find out! Thanks for your other suggestions too!
Thank your so much for your answer Jesse! ?
Let's see (hear) what you'll find out!
I forgot the 430hz theory has been discarded a while back.?
I analyzed the sounds with some basic audio software (audacity).
The Great Northern sound frequency analysis looks like this. It has (Twin) peaks at 612Hz (D#5) and 926Hz (A#5):
Carrie's phone, peaks at 1041Hz (C6) and 1398Hz (F6):
The ring looks quite different, it's more like octaves (G#6 and G#7):
I analyzed the sounds with some basic audio software (audacity).
The Great Northern sound frequency analysis looks like this. It has (Twin) peaks at 612Hz (D#5) and 926Hz (A#5):
Carrie's phone, peaks at 1041Hz (C6) and 1398Hz (F6):
The ring looks quite different, it's more like octaves (G#6 and G#7):
Great job! And...another dead theory (of mine).
Thanks anyway. It was bugging me since then. Cooper/Richard and Carrie don't even seem to notice it. And...where the hell was that phone at?
It's an interesting thought - a play on words with the physical ring, the tonal ringing, and the ring of a phone. It's especially interesting when considering the malevolent role phones play all season.
I hadn't even thought about comparing the use of ringing phones throughout the series, definitely an interesting angle as well!
I actually came across two other interesting points of audio surrounding the tones tonight regarding the owl cave ring when rewatching the scene of Coop waking up.
First, the pitch of the tone in Coop's hospital room is actually a higher pitch than that heard in the Great Northern. Not sure what to make of that, but there it is.
Secondly, and of more immediate significance to me at least, is the fact that when MIKE presents the ring to Coop in this scene, the whole time the ring is presented you can hear a high pitched ringing tone as well! Which, when re-pitched by slowing it down, sounds a lot like the tones heard in Coop's room and the Great Northern.
Here's some sound files for reference again:
Tone heard before Coop wakes up
Tone heard when Mike presents the ring
Tone of Mike giving the ring, slowed to match waking up tone
At this point, I've definitely begun to form a theory of what the tone in the Great Northern and Coop's room signifies, and why this ties back to the ring: essentially, it's a sound indicative of (or perhaps caused by) a point of transference between earthly reality and that of the Lodge.
First, we definitely see that the ring is used as a means of transference: it transports Laura, Ray, Mr. C, and (presumably) Chet Desmond to the Lodge.
Similarly, the two places we hear this tone are points of transference: first, Coop's room. While I can't say if the return of Coop's self in this place is a true transference (I would lean towards not, since his self could have been trapped inside the Dougie shell the whole time), but there is a definite transference from the Lodge to the hospital room, as Mike physically passes the ring to Coop between these spaces. Secondly, in the Great Northern, we see the tone has been coming from the connecting point between the basement and the convenience store (or at least, a portal / dark hallway leading to the convenience store).
Now, obviously there are plenty of points of transference between the earthly realm and the Lodges that do not involve this ringing tone, but, these points in particular have one element in common: MIKE, the character that we've seen most heavily involved in passing the ring to people.
Somewhat tangential but maybe worth mentioning: a very odd bit of editing while Cooper is in a coma. Two or more characters say "the coma has something to do with electricity." On the last one of these, we cut to Cole's hotel room, full of the superflous looking computers and other gizmos. The camera lingers on the machines for a long time. Gordon Cole is stood staring at them. We then finally cut back to the hospital room, and specifically, a close-up of the EKG machine. As I say, it's quite odd - it's deliberately telling us something about the nature of the electricity.
Regarding the above two posts and phones:
Yeah, I hadn't thought of phone rings and THE ring either! But I had thought about Lucy's grand statement that she understands cellular phones, and my thought ties to those scenes of Cole sitting and listening to ???
Perhaps Lucy learned how to read Andy's thoughts and telepathically saw where he the vision had him placing her in the sheriff's office? Perhaps telepathy is at play in the TP universe.
Havent we all always wondered if Cole's hearing aid was more than it seemed? And some of us have wondered if he's tuned in and reading all this gadgets around him telepathically. Maybe Lucy tapped the same talent??
Its all just maybes, and I'm convinced that all ideas like this could have been purposefully planted in the script but not necessarily to be factual in the story; we are free to interpret whether or not Cole and Lucy have supernatural powers.
Edit: Maybe I shouldn't say it's supernatural telepathy. Maybe they're communicating by electromagnetic waves, having their neural electricity intelligibly manipulated.
All good stuff here guys. We actually hear a close version of the ringing sound right from the first episodes of Season 1.
Where might you ask? It's within the sound of the ceiling fan in the Palmer's house! There is no question that this is very much in the same sonic vein as what we hear in Season 3.
My own guess is that it's like a bleed-through of the other dimensions or something. Note that Laura does enter through her painting in FWWM, and then Cooper (and others) in the Great Northern, etc...
Also in coops dream sequence in season 1 or 2 when its 25 years later as he is clearly older in this dream the man from another place/the arm starts rubbing his hands together and I'm sure this sound is the same sound too. As it is future I'm sure it's resonating into the now that they hear in season 3 being 25 years later . Just a thought
Fire walk with