Tocatta and Fugue

Come for a walk with me to the musical instruments section of the Deutsches Museum in Munich. One of the exhibits is a set of - and I don't even know if there's a word for them in English, never mind in German - resonating pipes. Varying in length, they're a bit like a cross between the pipes on a church organ and an ear-trumpet. Put your ear to the aperture of one of the pipes, and it allows you to hear snippets of conversation from any of the visitors in the exhibition hall who just happens to be speaking on the particular frequency that the pipe is adjusted to. The longer the pipe, the deeper the voices it can pick up and vice versa. Move to the next pipe up or down the range, and the first voice disappears only to be replaced by that of someone talking at a higher or low frequency.

Even if the person that you're listening to is whispering, the pipe effectively filters out the entire hubbub that is going on around them, allowing you to focus on the one conversation in the midst of the cacophony. Take your ear away from the aperture and you return to an indistinguishable melee of voices.

I really like the analogy that this situation offers. There can be so many people clamouring for your attention and making so much virtual (and actual!) noise in the process that it's impossible to hear individual voices. But occasionally you encounter a person with whom you resonate so closely, (or, to put it another way "you're both on the same wavelength") that despite the noise that's being made around you, their voice cuts through the clatter and hits home.

Perhaps, therefore, if you resonate with me, you'll understand what I'm saying!