The brown note is an urban legend about an ultra-low frequency that causes uncontrollable bowel movements. The actual frequency is debated, and experiments have failed to confirm its existence. It cannot be broadcast effectively and the technology required to generate it is not generally available.
If your tastes in music extend to potential bouts of “involuntary gastrointestinal motility,” a brown note concert might be just the ticket. According to an urban legend, the brown note is an ultra-low or infrasonic frequency that resonates with a person’s gastrointestinal tract, causing an uncontrollable loss of bowel control. In theory, several thousand attendees of a show would defecate at the same time, creating a medical emergency of epic proportions and eliminating any possibility of adding a second show.
The actual note or the frequency connected to the note phenomenon is a matter of debate. Humans cannot hear frequencies below 20 Hertz (Hz), but can perceive physical effects from exposure to infrasonic frequencies reproduced at high decibel levels, similar to hearing pressure from the subwoofer speakers in an expensive car stereo system or stand near a large speaker at a rock concert.
The belief is that the note is struck between 5Hz and 9Hz, which would presumably make a person’s intestinal tract resonate the same way a thin crystal glass would resound and would eventually shatter whenever a soprano’s voice amplified was directed at it. In the case of the brown note, however, the results would be much harder to brush off.
Various experiments and semi-scientific investigations have been conducted on the phenomenon over the years, mostly confirming its status as little more than an urban legend. When Brown Note was performed in concert by musician Ben Folds, no incidents of involuntary defecation were reported. An investigation by the TV show MythBusters also failed to duplicate the effect, although volunteers experienced other symptoms while subjected to infrasonic frequencies.
The brown note is sometimes mentioned as a potential weapon of mass embarrassment in comics and cartoons, but thankfully the note cannot be broadcast effectively over standard television or radio speakers. Arguably, the sustained effects of mass defecation would create serious health and environmental concerns, but the chances of a real criminal mastermind successfully passing the note are slim to zero. At best, a weaponized infrasonic sound generator could cause soldiers on the battlefield to become temporarily disoriented or unable to communicate.
This does not mean that the use of infrasonic frequencies is completely harmless, but the technology required to generate and transmit a sustained brown note is not generally available to the public. One could however question the motives of anyone who made the effort to get such a system. There’s more to life than generating involuntary gastrointestinal motility via huge subwoofers, isn’t there?
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