# Has any music been written that targets high frequencies teens can hear? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 9, 2018, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-music-been-written-that-targets-high-frequencies-teens-can-hear/822715 "2018-10-09T18:16:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2018, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-music-been-written-that-targets-high-frequencies-teens-can-hear/822715/21 "2018-10-12T04:57:44Z")
I’ve heard music, when young, that sounded worse than forgettable when played on the AM radio. You had to listen to it on a proper music system to understand why people were buying it I assume that’s still true about some popular music now. I wouldn’t know. Get off my lawn. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2018, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-music-been-written-that-targets-high-frequencies-teens-can-hear/822715/22 "2018-10-12T15:23:46Z")
Hard and fast rules are only guides. I can still hear almost to 17K at age 57. The volume drop off is noticeable, but I can still hear it. Protect your ears when you’re young, kiddos. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-music-been-written-that-targets-high-frequencies-teens-can-hear/822715/23 "2018-10-13T23:41:42Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > I’ve heard music, when young, that sounded worse than forgettable when played on the AM radio. You had to listen to it on a proper music system to understand why people were buying it I assume that’s still true about some popular music now. I wouldn’t know. Get off my lawn. Conversely, there are some songs I prefer to listen to through the tinny speakers on my computer than on a higher-end stereo system, because that tinny sound is how I remember them. ---
**Author:** ![Moris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moris/32/2846_2.png) [@Moris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moris)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-music-been-written-that-targets-high-frequencies-teens-can-hear/822715/24 "2019-10-20T00:39:28Z")
People love mid-range sounds, and young generations certainly love bass. Anyway, 15-20 kHz range is simply not enough to make anything coherent or good-sounding. The musical range is less than octave and timbral complexity would resemble a theremin or guitar feedback at best. If you can hear the frequency, it doesn’t mean it’s sounding good. Highest note on piano is 4186 Hz. Imagine 30 more keys. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-music-been-written-that-targets-high-frequencies-teens-can-hear/822715/25 "2019-10-20T18:01:55Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Almost 30 years, I dated a man who owned a used record store, and as closing time approached, or if he had customers about whom he had some reason to believe might be troublesome, he would put on classical music. It never failed to amaze him who knew what it was, as in who wrote it, performed it, what piece it was, etc. and other potential teenage non-hangouts have done comparable things. I grew up listening to my parents and grandparents music [for the most part] and still will prefer to listen to the same stuff, however I also listen to mongolian pop, romanian dubstep, german tanz metal, finnish death metal, pretty much anything that catches my ear and appeals to me. I still don’t like bubblegum pop, the real whiney country stuff [for GOD’S SAKE, stop whining, go pick up a bitch in a bar, marry her, get her to take care of the damned kids and go harvest your fucking crops …and forget Lucille, she is off banging your neighbor.] > [@TreacherousCretin](#): > > Take Two: > > As an audiophile I could hear it well into my 40’s. I couldn’t pinpoint the actual pitch/frequency, but could hear it as a faint steady sound. I don’t know how unusual I may or may not have been in that regard; by the time I was 50 Martha’s whistle was long gone for my ears. I spent a fun summer guinea pigging for the US Navy’s audio lab, listening for sounds embedded in pink and white noise, something pertaining to the sonar girls ability to find other boats … I shut down the lab for an afternoon because I kept hearing the 60 cycle hum transmitted by the computer they were using to generate the tones when the pure tone generator was down. 20 years later, I can still hear the top and bottom end past ‘normal’ range, to me it is not a big deal, it is something I have been able to do all my life. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2019, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-music-been-written-that-targets-high-frequencies-teens-can-hear/822715/26 "2019-10-20T18:30:33Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Minnie Riperton, Olivia Newton-John - and more recently, Sandi Patti, Mariah Carey, and don’t forget Bradley Delp, who by the time I saw Boston in the mid 1990s had an understudy to hit those extreme high notes. The next boyfriend I had after the aforementioned business owner had perfect pitch, and he said that note was the E two octaves above middle C. I’ve never forgotten that. 🆒 > > The ex-boyfriend, BTW, used opera for REAL potential troublemakers. > > I also recall working in a computer room shortly after graduating from high school, and one day, the magnetic tape machine (remember those?) made a very high-pitched sound that not everyone in the department could hear. I could, and it was PAINFUL. Hearing aids of the era also often did this (and sometimes still do); as a teenager, I attended a church where there was an elderly man who would sit up front and often fell asleep during the sermon. One morning, it did this, and the pastor said, “Would someone please wake up Mr. (his name) and tell him that his hearing aid is malfunctioning?” There was an escalator in a department store I used to shop at in my teens and twenties that had a nearly inaudible whine. I didn’t so much hear it as feel it, and it was painful. I’d avoid being near the escalators as much as possible in that store. ---
**Author:** ![Sterling\_Archer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Sterling\_Archer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterling_Archer)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-music-been-written-that-targets-high-frequencies-teens-can-hear/822715/27 "2019-10-21T20:16:22Z")
There’s a great moment in the Hunger Games where an explosion goes off near Katniss and the movie does that character-has-been-deafened sound effect thing where most sounds are muffled and underwater sounding. I watched this with my family and immediately my kids all looked at each other and said “Ew I hate that sound!” I thought, “Huh? I don’t hear anything unpleasant… “ and then a few seconds later it hit my ears, a very high pitched tone to complete the deafness effect. Apparently it starts out ultra high (where i couldn’t detect it at all, I’m 43) and lowers as the time goes on. You probably need good speakers to hear the effect correctly though. Check it out, it’s super cool. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-any-music-been-written-that-targets-high-frequencies-teens-can-hear/822715.md?page=1)