Laying inside that claustrophobic white tunnel unable to move for an hour I realized how musical an MRI machine is. Most would call it noise but if you listen really closely you can hear the rhythm, the beat, even words sometimes. As a linguist I have a tendency to assign words to almost anything audible; when I walk my dog in the morning I hear the birds sing actual words, sometimes in English, sometimes in other languages. So, it is no surprise that I also hear words in the seemingly unintelligible clanking of the MRI magnets.
So what does the MRI say? No, not ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding like the fox. More like doc doc doc doctor and blah blah blah blah. At one point I could have sworn it said, espera aí espera aí espera aí, which means wait there in Portuguese. Now put all that to music and you got a song.
In fact, I am not the only one that thought it was musical. As I was browsing the internet looking for samples of the MRI sounds to attach to this blog, I found a YouTube gem; someone called Zoido has actually been inspired to write a dub step piece using the sounds of an MRI. See? There is beauty and silver linings in everything. Even in the horrible sounds of a magnetic resonance imaging machine. Enjoy the music.
Author Natalina Reis 