# Brown note **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 10, 2000, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-note/8362 "2000-03-10T01:27:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wood\_Thrush](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b38774/32.png) [@Wood\_Thrush](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wood_Thrush)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2000, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-note/8362/1 "2000-03-10T01:27:00Z")
What is up with this so-called “brown note”? Supposedly, upon hearing it people…um…produce droppings/mess their pants/take a $h!t/etc :eek: . Is this true? Could I learn to play a certain intstrument, join an orchestra, “accidentally” hit the wrong note, and ruin the evening? 😃 You realize of course a very long, drwn out prank that will be difficult to set up (but worth it 🙂 ) is riding on this! * * * “Whenever a man hears it he is young, and Nature is in her spring; whenever he hears it, it is a new world and a free country, and the gates of heaven are not shut against him” –Thoreau, on the song of the wood thrush ---
**Author:** ![Ursa\_Major](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/a88e57/32.png) [@Ursa\_Major](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ursa_Major)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2000, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-note/8362/2 "2000-03-10T01:32:00Z")
The “brown note” was a plot device in a recent episode of _South Park_. Somehow, I doubt there is such a thing in real life. ---
**Author:** ![Alphagene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Alphagene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alphagene)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2000, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-note/8362/3 "2000-03-10T01:55:00Z")
This was discussed here in January. The answer is something like probably not. [The Brown Note](http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/005001.html) * * * **Gypsy** : Tom, I don’t get you. **Tom Servo** : Nobody does. I’m the wind, baby. ---
**Author:** ![siva](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7c8e57/32.png) [@siva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/siva)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2000, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-note/8362/4 "2000-03-10T02:19:00Z")
I asked a few friends that play everything from netal to orchestra and the only person that has heard was in the orchestra. Like Ursa Major said it was a plot device in South Park. other than that its B.S. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2000, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-note/8362/5 "2000-03-10T03:05:00Z")
I don’t doubt that it’s bullshit. But I have been given an eyewitness report from a friend who said that he has experienced it himself. Supposedly, the waveform couldn’t be generated directly, but it would appear in the interference pattern between two other waveforms such that when one was standing in the right spot where two huge speakers were sending off these two different frequencies of sound, you would find your sphincter relaxing or vibrating open or something like that. Supposedly this is the `resonant frequency of the human body.’ I heard this story before I was in the habit of raising my eyebrow at every crazy thing I heard, so I didn’t press the question of what exactly counts as the `resonant frequency of the human body’ such that it would, of all things, open up the sphincter. ---
**Author:** ![Alphagene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Alphagene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alphagene)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2000, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brown-note/8362/6 "2000-03-10T05:12:00Z")
Johnny, if you read my link of the previous thread in which this was discussed, you may find something similar to what your friend described.