How far does sound travel?

[Tangleweed]

So this is not really a question specific to roleplaying, but I figured someone here would know. And I am asking because I am GMing a game.

How far does "sound" travel? More specifically, In the area we play in there is a village where they have religious ceremonies some late evenings. This include quite loud musik and singing, with drums, flutes, shrieks and what not. I would like this sound to carry to the closest village where the PCs are currently staying, and I want it to be a day of a travel or so to get there. So... how far would it be possible to hear such music? I know from personal experience that such sound travel quite far in an otherwise quiet wilderness space. But I am not sure just how far. The terrain is mountainous area at high altitude with valleys with a mix of small plains, forests and running rivers. Similar to the area around Briançon in France.

Anyone?

[Storm_Of_Snow]

https://silencewiki.com/noise-basics...-of-acoustics/

This may help

You're looking at a couple of miles for music at most - thinner air at altitude would attenuate it, but there should be less things in the way to block it or deflect it into the air.

To be heard from a day's travel distance away, you could use terrain to funnel the sound in a particular direction (say a narrow stone valley with little vegetation to absorb the sounds), although it would get more confused by all the echoes, or have something like a river that's difficult to cross and the party either need to wait for a ferry or go a considerable distance to the nearest bridge before coming back.

[Alcore]

Terrain is a good choice but it’ll weaken the sound as much as it spreads it. (Which is why your echo is never as loud as you are)


Ground is said to be a better medium for sound waves. Perhaps a giant ceremonial drum?

[SpanielBear]

Wind direction makes a lot of difference. It also makes a useful hint/clue, if the sounds are only heard when the wind is from the north (or wherever).

[Mechalich]

Villages produce smoke, from cookfires at the very least. In mountainous terrain this is likely to be visible from far beyond the range of any auditory signals.

[Grod_The_Giant]

My suggestion would be "don't worry about it, if it sounds plausible to you, it'll sound plausible to your players."

[Thrudd]

My suggestion would be "don't worry about it, if it sounds plausible to you, it'll sound plausible to your players."

depends on the players...I've known more than one who would never hesitate to call out things that they find scientifically implausible, in almost any setting or scenario. But the more pertinent point might be: who cares about that guy? lol Especially if it's fantasy, just go ahead and do what you want - maybe there's some magical way the music is being amplified or transported so that it is heard at great distances.

[Tanarii]

A normal conversation sounds like a whisper at 30ft.
A loud conversation sounds like a whisper at 60ft
Shouting can be heard as a whisper at maybe 4 times that. Depending on how clearly you want to pick out the words.

Drums could easily carry further than that. I can vaguely hear the local high school band practice drum line from 2 miles away. It's a valley with the school at the base and the house part way up one side, so I'm hearing echoes too, but still pretty cool.

[Grod_The_Giant]

My suggestion would be "don't worry about it, if it sounds plausible to you, it'll sound plausible to your players."

[Lemmy]

My suggestion would be "don't worry about it, if it sounds plausible to you, it'll sound plausible to your players."

I'm not sure if this is a mistake or a really clever echo pun.

[Alcore]

My suggestion would be "don't worry about it, if it sounds plausible to you, it'll sound plausible to your players."

Horrible advice unless you know your players are as educated (or ignorant) as yourself. Most world builders don’t make plausible worlds without heaps of “a wizard did it”.


Personally it is too far far away… I could see conditions making it plausible but it is a stretch. Would I object? Probably not.

[SpanielBear]

Message drums used in jungle/forested areas could be heard 3-7 miles away. Depending on how rough the travel is with an intervening terrain feature or two, could work?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Horrible advice unless you know your players are as educated (or ignorant) as yourself. Most world builders don’t make plausible worlds without heaps of “a wizard did it”.

As a GM, you only have so much time and mental energy to devote to your campaign. Learning what to prioritize and what to let slide is an important skill, especially as you get older and life starts to make more demands of you. Researching acoustics to carefully work out exactly how far sound would carry using real-life physics does NOT strike me as something worth prioritizing, not when "you hear the faint sounds of frenzied drums and flutes, echoing through the valleys and blowing in with the wind" will satisfy 99% of all players.

Even if you happened to be someone who's spent a lot of time in the wilderness and happen to know first-hand how sounds carry, how likely are you to notice something hinky? Especially since you'll probably cover the distance in the span of a few sentences, and then there are more interesting and immediate things to think about.

[Batcathat]

As a GM, you only have so much time and mental energy to devote to your campaign. Learning what to prioritize and what to let slide is an important skill, especially as you get older and life starts to make more demands of you. Researching acoustics to carefully work out exactly how far sound would carry using real-life physics does NOT strike me as something worth prioritizing, not when "you hear the faint sounds of frenzied drums and flutes, echoing through the valleys and blowing in with the wind" will satisfy 99% of all players.

Even if you happened to be someone who's spent a lot of time in the wilderness and happen to know first-hand how sounds carry, how likely are you to notice something hinky? Especially since you'll probably cover the distance in the span of a few sentences, and then there are more interesting and immediate things to think about.

On one hand, you're right that a GM needs to prioritize and that not everything needs to be 100 percent accurate. On the other hand, having something that seems unrealistic (without an in-universe explanation) can be a good way to knock someone out of the moment. So finding a middle road that requires neither strenuous research for the GM nor straining the players' suspension of disbelief too far seems like a good idea.

[Thrudd]

As a GM, you only have so much time and mental energy to devote to your campaign. Learning what to prioritize and what to let slide is an important skill, especially as you get older and life starts to make more demands of you. Researching acoustics to carefully work out exactly how far sound would carry using real-life physics does NOT strike me as something worth prioritizing, not when "you hear the faint sounds of frenzied drums and flutes, echoing through the valleys and blowing in with the wind" will satisfy 99% of all players.

Even if you happened to be someone who's spent a lot of time in the wilderness and happen to know first-hand how sounds carry, how likely are you to notice something hinky? Especially since you'll probably cover the distance in the span of a few sentences, and then there are more interesting and immediate things to think about.

If you have one of those players, it doesn't matter that 99% of all others would be satisfied. but you're right, you need to prioritize. But also, it never hurts to do a little research if it will avoid an annoying interruption at your table from your resident physicist. lol

[Tanarii]

Researching acoustics to carefully work out exactly how far sound would carry using real-life physics does NOT strike me as something worth prioritizing, not when "you hear the faint sounds of frenzied drums and flutes, echoing through the valleys and blowing in with the wind" will satisfy 99% of all players.

I've found most players will balk when they're unseen in combat and an enemy can pinpoint their location well enough to pinpoint (not guess where to attack) them at 100ft. Between that and forum discussions, I found it was something well worth spending a time as DM to research.

Of course, that was close range sounds. But having a rough idea for one range ones could well provide fruitful if you're running an outdoor campaign where loud sounds will be heard at long range often.

[NichG]

So this is not really a question specific to roleplaying, but I figured someone here would know. And I am asking because I am GMing a game.

How far does "sound" travel? More specifically, In the area we play in there is a village where they have religious ceremonies some late evenings. This include quite loud musik and singing, with drums, flutes, shrieks and what not. I would like this sound to carry to the closest village where the PCs are currently staying, and I want it to be a day of a travel or so to get there. So... how far would it be possible to hear such music? I know from personal experience that such sound travel quite far in an otherwise quiet wilderness space. But I am not sure just how far. The terrain is mountainous area at high altitude with valleys with a mix of small plains, forests and running rivers. Similar to the area around Briançon in France.

Anyone?

Borderline I think. If 'one day of travel' is actually not that far because of difficult terrain, then low frequency stuff might be audible at that range, but I wouldn't expect voices or high frequency stuff to be audible. If 'one day of travel' is 15 miles, probably not. A gunshot is audible from between 1 to 10 miles. Of course you could have a gimmick where e.g. the two villages are at different ends of a roughly elliptical valley, so sound travelling outwards in all directions bounces and a larger portion than normally should gets re-focused at the other village. If it was done intentionally in ages past, could be a fun gimmick.

[Fat Rooster]

Biggest question is whether the service in question want to be heard or not*. Sounds designed to be distinctive over long distance are quite effective, be they yodelling, or Islamic calls to prayer. Drums are obviously quite good, but if the purpose of the revelry is inward focused I would not expect it to be audible from particularly far unless the really like their bass.
The second factor is weather conditions. Wind direction has been mentioned, but often more important is what the temperature gradients look like. Sometimes you can get a temperature inversion at fairly low altitude, reflecting sound back at the ground. In those conditions you might be able to hear dramatically further, maybe up to a few dozen km**. On the other hand, fog eats noise, meaning that in those conditions hearing even a few hundred meters might be impossible. You sometimes even get both, where somebody further away can hear the sound reflected off a temperature inversion better than somebody closer who can only hear the straight line sound through a few hundred meters of fog!
**You get an effect where sound is stuck low, so effectively dissipates linearly with distance, rather than quadratically, as well as not being so dependent on line of sight.

I could see something developing between two distant villages if due to some quirk of topology and weather they could sometimes hear each other extraordinarily well from some spots. Maybe each initially thought they could hear the gods, when it was actually just the other village. That's the other thing. It would go both ways.

* Pretty unrelated, but cool anyway. The notion that duck's quacks don't echo is sort of relevant. Obviously they do echo, but the sound itself seems to be crafted so that when you overlay an echo over it, it is hard to distinguish from a quack that hasn't echoed. The specifics of a sound make a big difference to how well it can be discerned and interpreted, particularly in mountainous terrain.

[factotum]

You could potentially have some sort of natural formation behaving like these things:

https://theromneymarsh.net/soundmirrors

Even with 1930s technology and specially trained listeners the largest of those could only detect aircraft engines (which are quite loud!) at a distance of up to 24 miles, though.

[Tangleweed]

Thank you all for the feedback. Very appreciated.

The ceremonis are in no way secret. It is a a village where they act out and retell parts of their mythology by traditional music, dancing and dressing up as the characters. It is supposed to to remind the gods, sway them and draw their attention. The music and singing is supposed to be heard to be loud enough to get the gods attention. From a worldbuilding perspective I am trying to show a difference in religious practice in the area. Some villages worship many of the gods from the forgotten realm in this loud very communal manner while some other villages mainly worship one of the gods in a more scripture based manner.

While I agree that it is not a big deal to get it totally right, I also dont wanna get it completely wrong. My favorite example is how most players underestimate just how easy it is to spot a campfire in middle of the night if the sun is down and its completely dark.

Bit I think Ill move the Village a bit closer, but put it a bit up the side of one of the mountains overlooking the PCs current position, and make the road to get there sort of bad. That way the sound would travel further and the travel to get there, while lot to long in distance, would take time as it is a snaking path up a mountain side. Would also make sense as those snaking paths are a great way to make hidden defensive positions from where the villagers could observe and potentially ambush intruders. Not that they will fight the PCs unless they act aggressive first.

[Lord Torath]

Having the 'noisy' village up against a cliff face also doubles the intensity of the sound, as the cliff acts as a sounding board. Great choice!

[tomandtish]

For what it's worth, I live in a city. I can hear the high-school marching band practicing outside during the fall. They are about 2 miles away, but it's also roughly 100 people.

[Tyndmyr]

Message drums used in jungle/forested areas could be heard 3-7 miles away. Depending on how rough the travel is with an intervening terrain feature or two, could work?

Yeah, have the drums be heard faintly and far off at first, and have additional detail as they get closer, allowing them to more or less pace it.

As for the "taking a day" distance travelled greatly depends on the ground. A man walking on a good, level road may travel 40 miles in a day, and music would not travel that. But if you are hacking your way through the jungle, your progress would be a tiny fraction of that pace.

So, toss obstacles in the way. They need not be very hard to overcome, but so long as they make the travel time sound reasonably plausible, your players will probably not question it. Heck, you could also salt it with some random encounters or what not. Have them sneak around some sleeping crocodiles or the like.

Personally, I think the goal of having distances and stuff be plausible is good. Players can be disappointed when they jump to conclusions based on their understanding of physics, and run into a different one. You don't need to get into the gritty math, just something that's going to seem pretty plausible. For a day's travel, that's fine provided that the distance traveled is modest, and you clearly hear that you are getting closer as you progress.

[Psyren]

I'm with Grod on this one, very few players expect their DM to have a physics degree.

I'd also add that you set baseline expectations using the system itself. In D&D, even for outdoor exploration, very few things past a mile away from the party tend to matter - you can deviate from that, but as a general rule of thumb, "if it's more than a mile away it probably doesn't matter" works fine for the majority of situations. Maybe double that if they're on top of a hill or something.

I'll further add that, while you didn't specify your system OP, if magic is a thing (and it sounds like it with their "religious ceremonies") you have license to do all kinds of things to introduce the hook. Maybe instead of hearing the music, the party all have the same dream about it, as either the deity they're worshiping or a rival wants to clue them in to what's happening, and they get there at the speed of plot. Or maybe they do hear it, and if you look it up in a textbook later or anyone cares, afterward, just say the ceremony was somehow audible in the town despite its distance. These can even work even for a pretty low-magic setting.