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Sarangi with its sympathetic strings

Touch one string and the others around it begin vibrating, each in its own way. The surrounding strings are sympathetic to what the main string is saying, humming along with it, adding their overtones into the mix, as if saying I hear you. Sympathetic resonance happens when a passive vibratory body responds to external vibrations to which it has a harmonic relationship.

A similar phenomenon of sensitivity happens when we listen to music and respond to its vibes by generating our own phantom tones. Sound energy converts into physical energy: synapses fire and skin tingles as sounds energize and inspire us, conjure feelings and memories, oscillate our nervous system.

Vibration is oscillation is rhythm, that invisible ordering force which Léopold Sédar Senghor called the most sensible and the least material thing. We can’t touch sound, but we’re touched by its sense. A car blasting music rolls down the street outside the window, triggering the parked car’s alarm once again–beep-beep-beep-beep. When music happens, we become its resonance. I hear you.