# Anyone else hear music/singing when a fan is on? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 27, 2015, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-hear-music-singing-when-a-fan-is-on/732663 "2015-09-27T01:33:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CharmaChameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@CharmaChameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CharmaChameleon)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2018, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-hear-music-singing-when-a-fan-is-on/732663/21 "2018-05-10T18:18:52Z")
Whatever this is, it’s pretty much a constant with me for about 50 years now, brought on by electric fans, rain showers, taking a shower, tires on pavement at some speeds. I try not to let it bother me too much. In the '80s I worked with another programmer who I am certain wrote certain rhythms, poly-rhythms, and the like into any code which would drive output to a dot matrix printer. That drove me to distraction! I can attribute the printer-drum line thing to my misspent college years, especially the two years of music theory with the professor’s insistence on “dictation exercises”–he’d play short pieces on piano and we students had to write them on manuscript paper. The four part harmony. The tempo and dynamics markings. The key and time signatures. All of it. Professor was a vicious grader. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2018, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-hear-music-singing-when-a-fan-is-on/732663/22 "2018-05-10T20:45:55Z")
Well not so much specific music, but the urge to hum, and sing along was always pretty strong when I’d wear hearing protection and work next to pretty loud and pretty constant pitch CNC router. I think it was just having the router there as a persistent pitch-pipe and being able to hear myself in my shrouded ears (ear plugs and ear muffs) that made the urge so strong. “_Do you know the way to San Jose_” was always a favorite. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2018, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-hear-music-singing-when-a-fan-is-on/732663/23 "2018-05-10T21:25:28Z")
When my furnace is on, I often think I hear faint music coming from a distant room or even from outside the house. But when I get closer to the furnace itself, I realize that it is only the hum of the fan and the flow of the gas. I always assumed it was some sort of pattern-recognition urge by the subconscious. ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2018, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-hear-music-singing-when-a-fan-is-on/732663/24 "2018-05-10T22:25:39Z")
It’s one of the more tolerable symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2018, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-hear-music-singing-when-a-fan-is-on/732663/25 "2018-05-11T03:01:36Z")
Yes, it’s part of why I don’t mind MRIs. They’re like a Mickey Hart jam. ---
**Author:** ![4d3fect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/4d3fect/32/9728_2.png) [@4d3fect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/4d3fect)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2018, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-hear-music-singing-when-a-fan-is-on/732663/26 "2018-05-11T04:48:43Z")
My earliest childhood memories are of this response to mechanical noise. Maybe this phenomenon is analogous to seeing faces in random visual features? (The brain trying to make sense out of something that isn’t human-related) ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2018, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-hear-music-singing-when-a-fan-is-on/732663/27 "2018-05-11T06:34:18Z")
I’ve experienced both of the effects described in this thread—music within repetitive mechanical sound, and unintelligible talking within white noise (such as a fan). An interesting bit of trivia: composer George Gershwin conceived his _Rhapsody in Blue_ on a railroad trip from New York to Boston; he later said that he could hear music buried in the train noise. ---
**Author:** ![edwardcoast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cab0a1/32.png) [@edwardcoast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwardcoast)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2018, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-hear-music-singing-when-a-fan-is-on/732663/28 "2018-05-11T07:30:36Z")
> [@Heckity](#): > > For as long as I can remember, whenever there is a fan on, or something softly oscillating in the air, I hear music. I’ve never spoken to anyone else who has this experience. > > What’s both odd and fascinating to me is that the “music” is never the same, even with all the same conditions. Tonight it was a torch singer. Two nights ago it was an orchestra. I imagine my brain is pulling a memory of something I’ve heard (rather than composing something new). Sometimes it is so beautiful that I’d love to write it down, but I’m sadly not very musical. > > So, anyone else? Is there science to explain it? Many times you are hearing overtones, and with any sort of rhythm to it, it can sound like music. Music is the sound of pitch and movement (rhythm). So a fan can have that effect or any kind of motor. You can ask an audiologist for the specifics. There are fans, HEPA air filters I’ve notice that do this, and sometimes simply changing the direction or moving the device in another direction makes the sound go away. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2018, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-hear-music-singing-when-a-fan-is-on/732663/29 "2018-05-11T12:42:19Z")
Holy crap, I know this is a zombie but I thought I was going crazy when using the bathroom with the fan on. Other people hear “music” too! It’s not just me!!! ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2018, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-hear-music-singing-when-a-fan-is-on/732663/30 "2018-05-11T14:24:20Z")
My wife’s alarm tone is a piece of classical music. If the heat pump runs in the morning after I’ve heard that piece I will keep picking it up in the white noise of the pump. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2018, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-hear-music-singing-when-a-fan-is-on/732663/31 "2018-05-11T15:11:34Z")
> [@Alice\_The\_Goon](#): > > This doesn’t happen with the box fan I sleep with on now, but it has occurred in the past. It’s not quite the same thing, but just incidentally, my washing machine says, “Can I go?” over and over. If you are not actively washing clothes at the time, I would let it go. In fact, I would insist… I tend to hear muffled conversation or phrases more than music, but have experienced all of the above a certain times. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-hear-music-singing-when-a-fan-is-on/732663.md?page=1)