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What's sound got to do with it?

Subhead
Plenty, if you could personal satisfaction
Lead Summary
By
Lori Sorenson, editor

I got a new keyboard for my Mac at the Star Herald last week, and in addition to being shiny and new (and clean), it has a new sound.
A satisfying sound. … Almost like a typewriter, minus the ding of the return cartridge.
Clickety clackety clickety clackety …
“It sounds very productive,” a fellow news writer observed.
My previous keyboard arrived quietly. With little ado. Its plastic casing with rubbery keys made words appear in a document silently. As if no work was being done at my desk.
My fingers were moving over the keyboard, and words appeared in the document on the screen in front of me. But if words are typed and no one is able to hear them, is real work being accomplished?
That’s a silly question, obviously. Words read the same regardless of how they sound during composition.
But there’s something satisfying about the sound of a keyboard when someone is furiously hammering out a story on deadline.
Why is that so satisfying?
Maybe it’s related to the lack of sound my kitchen drawers and cupboards have.
The “quiet close” feature lets you give the drawer or cupboard door a push, and it will hesitate just before closing.
It makes for peaceful kitchen work, but what if the kitchen worker is trying to send a passive-aggressive message to the person on the couch nearby?
Like, “That’s OK. I don’t need any help. You just stay there on the couch.”
To slam a cupboard door or shove a drawer shut would certainly help drive home that message (or at least make it difficult for someone to hear the TV).
And it would certainly be more satisfying.
The same person might also miss the satisfaction of slamming the phone onto a receiver to “hang up” on a conversation without saying good-bye.
Pressing the red button on our touch screen smart phone lacks the intended message, “This conversation is over, because I decided it’s over.”
Did we lose a connection? Should the person try to call back?
With a real phone and a real receiver, there wasn’t a doubt. Sometimes the slam was loud enough to hurt ears on the other end of the line.
I wonder if there’s an app for that. …
In researching that notion, I discovered there is indeed an app for recreating a typewriter sound on your smart phone keyboard.
I also discovered I’m not the only one who enjoys the clatter of a well-constructed keyboard, some of which are designed with keystroke sounds that “click” both on the way down, and on the way up, at identical volumes.
And there are YouTube videos of keyboard “white noise,” keyboard clicking, for those who enjoy falling asleep to the pleasant sound of work.
Or … maybe I’ll key it up in the office to inspire productivity.
 

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