I used to think that the most annoying sound on earth is a mosquito hovering in the dark near my ear, but that was before I heard the “bellowing and enduring screech” of the vuvuzela, a one-note plastic trumpet that mindless African fans at the World Cup have been playing nonstop. Anyone who’s ever been kept awake by a bunch of braying, idiotic drunks knows that fully half of of the annoyance comes not from the volume but from having to hear such stupidity; similarly, the problem with the ungodly din of the vuvuzela isn’t just the decibel level – a single vuvezela is capable of 120 decibels – it’s hearing the audible evidence of the damnable stupidity of the IQ-challenged African fans who think it’s a good idea to make that sound nonstop for hours on end during a soccer match.
It’s little wonder that Cape Town shops are “running out of ‘vuvu-stopper’ earplugs. Spanish player Xabi Alonso’s description of the noise as “unbearable” is almost an understatement. To my ears it sounds like a giant swarm of metre-long robotic mosquitos with mechanical problems hovering six inches above my deathbed, but everyone’s got their own description: Martin Parry of AFP thinks it sounds like “a swarm of angry bees,” while Germany’s The Local describes it as being like a swarm of angry hornets.
Calls to have the vuvuzela banned from the World Cup – “the incessant single-note tooting drives me to distraction” – are widely shared. If you want to know why, listen to the stadium sound at around the 30 second mark in this video. Are you ready to confess yet?
Causing discomfort and annoyance might actually be the whole point: “To foreign coaches and players they could be a curse, (but) to South Africans they might yet be the secret weapon…” The South African coach says “We have to reinforce that advantage. We want it
During the Vietnam war there was a US trooper that would play the bagpipes. He was shot by a sniper. A captured Vietnamese was questioned about it. Did the sound of the pipes terrify you and that is why you shot him? No, was the reply ‘It was because he played them so badly.’ Whether true or not, don’t know.
There is the widespread misconception that it was the Scots that invented the bagpipe. It was in fact invented by the Irish, but purloined by the former and subsequently credited (blamed?) for its creation.
Here’s the widely held version of what happened.
Centuries ago, the Irishman Pat O’Malley put together an odd assortment of pipes and animal parts, and found a srange sound could be produced using various techniques. With further refinement he discovered he could make it sound even more obnoxious.
His untrustworthy neighbour, Duncan McCready fancied the apparatus, but O’Malley refused to part with it, rejecting all offers of coin or spirits for its purchase.
Fearing old Duncan might come and steal it from it him, he proceeded to secret it away under a manure pile behind his stable. Little did he know he was being observed, and under the cover of darkness, the Scot returned and made off with the prize.
After cleaning it up a little and blowing it out, he was able to produce that familiar sound.
And do you know, to this day, the Scots are still blowing the sh1t out of it!
Eight hours ago, from AFP:
“World Cup organising committee head Danny Jordaan on Sunday did not rule out banning vuvuzelas, the noisy plastic trumpets which have proved a hit with fans in South Africa but threaten to deafen players and viewers alike.”
Earlier in this thread TJ commented, “Funny thing is, Africans can, when they want to, create really good music, and they can sing beautifully.” Here’s what Jordaan said in the AFP story: “I would prefer singing…In the days of the struggle (against apartheid) we were singing, all through our history. It’s our ability to sing that inspired and drove the emotions.”
John Leicester, international sports writer for AP, just published this:
“The constant drone of cheap and tuneless plastic horns is killing the atmosphere at the World Cup.
“Where are the loud choruses of ‘Oooohhsss’ from enthralled crowds when a shot scorches just wide of the goalpost? And the sharp communal intake of breath, the shrill ‘Aaahhhhss,’ when a goalkeeper makes an acrobatic, match-winning save? Or the humorous/moving/offensive football chants and songs?
“Mostly, they’re being drowned out by the unrelenting water-torture beehive hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm of South African vuvuzela trumpets. Damn them. They are stripping World Cup 2010 of football’s aural artistry.
“Vuvuzela apologists – a few more weeks of this brainless white noise will perhaps change, or melt, their minds – defend the din as simply part of the South African experience. Each country to its own, they say. When in Rome, blah, blah, blah. Which would be fine if this was purely a South African competition. Fans could then legitimately hoot away to their hearts’ content while annoying no one other than their immediate neighbors. But this is the World Cup, a celebration of the 32 nations that qualified and of all the others that did not but which still play and love the game.”
After describing the singing and chanting that takes place in the rest of the world, and how it adds to the atmosphere of the match, Leicester says –
“The same cannot be said of vuvuzelas. They are simply mindless. Their pitch doesn’t change, just the intensity. Blow hard. Blow soft. The only range is from horrifically loud to just annoyingly so. Because of that, we absolutely could not hear the rich African voices of Ghana fans who sang lustily Sunday at the Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria, vibrantly clothed in their national colors of green and red. What a shame.”
“Please, South Africa, make the trumpets stop. Give us a song, instead.”
I watched the Australia Germany game today. A closeup of the crowd showed a white man blowing into a vuvuzuela.
I’d love to see the Africans singing
‘T’ is a big government worshipper, he/it’s a tyrant’s wet dream.
Yes, that was a terrible sound – like the sound of insanity or Poe-like madness. I did like the Brazilian culture portion…had a nice beat (so to speak).
I aint a soccer fan but it’s pretty obvious the offsides are a big problem in the game. With 11 players/side and no offsides it could become a hit in NA..just guessing
I just tuned in a game to hear the sound–WOW bees or riding over a grate bridge with the window down–Wow
“…like the sound of insanity or Poe-like madness.”
Oh! Oh!!
Verily.
reg:
Long ago (long, long ago!), I suggested that if the North American soccer leagues really wanted to make it big, they should adopt a hockey-type offside rule. All the players have to be behind the ball until it’s advanced to a certain point – say 30 yards from goal – at which point, as in hockey, there’s no more offside unless the ball leaves that zone.
I can hear howls from purists but really, look at hockey. International hockey has no touch icing, and it allowed the two line pass years before the NHL did, so complaints that the North American game has to be same as the European one are just BS. And considering all the ridiculous rule changes and unchanges foisted on hockey by dwarvish, short-fingered New York City lawyers (toe in the crease disallowed goals, the “trapezoidal area behind the net”, and “obstruction holding” – a different penalty than “interference” or “holding” I’m told, except I can’t see the difference), why won’t the North American league try some changes to get more fans in the stands?
The only thing that pissed me off about soccer was the diving and play acting after a hard tackle, and I was glad to see the German player get a card for diving towards the end of today’s game (although I thought the call was a bit of an exaggeration, but let’s set the tone early). Actually, that call started a conversation between my daughter and myself, where again, I thought soccer would benefit from a hockey type rule – instead of a red card meaning the rest of the game, how about 5 and 10 minute reds? Again, why wouldn’t the North American league give it a try? No innovation by the management, no bums in the seats.
I can pretty safely say that the athletes running around that field do not hear anything from the fans. As a fan, watching, if you do not like the killer bees sound, turn down the volume. Or put in the earplugs. Or drink more. Or whatever it takes.
“I can pretty safely say that the athletes running around the field do not hear anything from the fans.”
Au contraire, gobi desert. Read some of the online newspapers from Europe that publish in English, and you’ll see that (the Non-African) players have been complaining big-time that all they can hear is that awful, giant screeching sound, and that they can’t communicate with each other on the field.
Spain’s Xabi Alonso, for one, describes the aural assault as “unbearable.”
reg dunlop at June 13, 2010 9:17 PM
Really, no offside in soccer? No thanks. Imagine hockey without offside. It’s part of the game, man! The beautiful game. If you don’t enjoy it, it’s because you don’t play it and therefore don’t understand it.
“The Beautiful Game”? Perhaps, but that offsides rule is an ugly mole on the nose. At least the infield fly rule in baseball is impossible to manipulate by the players. Enjoy your game, I just don’t get why soccer fans need to be such blowhard evangelicals about their sport.
1) Without offside, no football. Simple.
2) Hopefully the noise will become bearable soon, see http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ghUbctrzM88GqP_A_qJZppPbhjVw
Blame the idiot who thought it was a good idea to host these games in S Africa. I won’t watch on principle for that reason alone.
Was it not the Andrews Sisters who first complained about “the vuvuzela bugle boy of Company B”?
FIFA will reap the rewards of this bone-headed decision when the 2010 World Cup is remembered for the stupidly annoying horns and a crap ball design(and quite possibly a revenue problem as more and more people tune out…) the fact that some good soccer is being played won’t matter.