What Skating Through Frozen Canals Taught Me About Sound

The endlessy flat borderlines of northwest Germany where I grew up gave us long, cold winters every year.  After a few days, the canals and lakes which traversed the fields and farmlands would freeze over. Deep snow edged the now sparkling water.  It was unclear when it was safe to go on the ice.

Someone would always try first, the ice giving its approval, or not. Warnings from the authorities were ignored by many of us but after five days of minus temperatures most people had a sense of confidence that the ice might hold you.

Some played ice hockey, others practised their stunts, parents put small children and babies on to sledges and swooshed them around the ice. Some couples held hands skating. There were always a few on Rotterdam Dutchman skates, whose effortless elegance betrayed the skill that was involved. Skating is the most efficient non-mechanical way to get around. It’s really leisurely, not at all like running. 

Others went in large groups on cruising tours taking in a mulled wine at the irregularly dotted ice huts placed for a day by enterprising farmers.

It was a winter wonderland given to us expansively, lovingly and freely by nature. It was a source of joy.

Some, like me, enjoyed long distance skating. If you visit my home town, you’ll see a network of canals still connects the lakes. On good ice, some skaters journeyed for 100km. Long cruises meant you could immerse into the wild, find your rhythm and listen to the ice as it talked to you. You just needed to listen.

The best skating was on fresh, thin, black ice. It produced distinctive sounds. The regular smooth skating moves, ‘woosh’ and ‘swish’, provided a uniform drum beat. Now and then there was a thunderous crack from somewhere far below and you couldn’t quite make out where it came form. They were high-pitch, laser-like sounds, interwoven with longer stretching ones. These sounds were fascinating. They were otherworldly. They began my early love with synthesisers.    

Physics explains that when a sound wave passes through a solid medium like ice, those high and low frequencies get separated. Being faster, the high-frequency wavelengths zip ahead of their low-frequency counterparts. As a result, you may hear a gap between the high and low notes contained within the same sound. It is called acoustic dispersion. These laser-like noises are indeed the sound of cracks forming in the ice as the skater passes over. This echoes along the ice, sending vibrations that create the noises that you hear.

If you have not heard it before, try this video.

On those long trips, I found myself, without realising at the time, in a meditative state. A silent world came out of the ice, even if you went with someone else on the Grosse Runde (the big round). Inevitably there were lots of silent pockets where you sometimes could not even see your ice partner.

A trance rose up from the regular smooth movements of the body, the absolute stillness and the eery ice sounds.     

After all those years and all-night, repetitive-sound warehouse club nights, I rediscovered this sense of trance. The long ice days are no more but the sounds and the feelings miraculously appeared again in my first sound bath experiences. Neuroscience provided an explanation. I had after all these years reached again an altered state of consciousness. It just needed reawakening.