cold sound

What is it about tinkley high-frequency bell sounds that's so evocative of winter? It it that it's sort of like the sound of ice cracking when the wind sways frozen tree branches? Or maybe it's just that it's been used to accompany winter scenes in so many film soundtracks and TV commercials that we've been conditioned...

I'm listening to the "Winter" movement from Wendy Carlos' 1972 composition Sonic Seasonings on WNYC's New Sounds, hosted by John Schaefer. He says that Stanley Kubrick used this music in The Shining at the end of the film when the cold turns deadly. I have to admit that the music is quite chilling, even though it's a balmy 30 degrees in New York City right now, with overcast skies and wind from the north at 4 mph.