Which sounds do you find relaxing? Which sounds do you find irritating?

I find the sound of silence, when my brain is buzzing with negative desperate thoughts really exasperating.

I love certain people’s voices, and listen to their audio books when I and having a hard time sleeping.

Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward.
Christopher Hitchens.
Patrick Stewart (I have his performance of “A Christmas Carol”).
The guy on The Modern Scholar’s “Stars, Constellations and The Sky” lecture.

I cannot abide dripping water, or any harsh metronome-type noise. And, 99% of American radio DJs.

I have a Pandora station of Priscilla Herdman who is a soprano singer/songwriter. I play it most nights while I am winding down before bed.

The sound of a waterfall or rain is relaxing.
Someone whistling is annoying.

I am in love with the sounds of nightime summer bugs. Cicadas, katydids, and crickets – my favorite drone to fall asleep to.

#1 most relaxing sound is a kitty purring.

I play the app Nature Scapes on my phone to sleep. The sound I like best is a river in the woods with the breezes and babbling brook sounds. The app also puts some droning tones underneath those sounds.

I also fall asleep easily with steady noise like a fan blowing. Crowd noise of a football game on TV will zonk me out pretty quickly too.

I don’t do well with vocal sounds because then I’m inclined to want to listen to what they’re saying (except sports announcers, whose endless prattle does knock me out).

I love the sound of rain and thunderstorms and wind.

For music, it’s jazz. Not “smooth jazz”, real jazz.
Fuck you Kenny G.

I find my wife’s snoring very soothing as well as wind chimes.

I love rain, hard or soft—from a light patter in fresh-scented air to a rip-roaring storm with wind howling like a B movie around the eaves.

But I can’t stand the sound of dripping water. If there’s a leaky faucet anywhere in the house, if the eaves are running over or a downspout is causing an irregular spatter, or if a cubicle neighbor has one of those blasted water-sound machines or plunkety-plunk miniature mill wheels, it drives me nuts.

I like the sound of rain on a tin roof.
The sound of people eating absolutely irritates the hell out of me. I’m moving to Africa.

Relaxing: Rain, especially on big leafy plants.
Irritating: Celine Dion’s singing voice, actually, make that fucking annoying!

Relaxing: The sounds in my house. The TV on, the dishwasher running, the tweeting of the birds; well, I guess the birds are outside. The sound of dead silence can also be extremely relaxing if I am in the mood for it. Since I often have buzzing in my ears now, I don’t really get to enjoy that the same way I used to. Being outside and hearing the wind blow through the trees is very relaxing also. Possibly more relaxing than ocean waves, but that is right up there too.

Irritating: Loud cars and motorcycles on the street. Lawn mowers.

Also irritating: snoring. In a perfect world, my husband and I will have separate bedrooms.

@Jeruba I hear your pain/rain. Water is tricky.
I love the sound of rain but hate the sound of a drippy faucet.
The sound of a drippy faucet can even bother me during a rainstorm.

I sometimes open the windows during a rainstorm to hear it better.

I love the sound of the ocean or the winds through the trees or water lapping gently and the little clinky tied-up-boat noises on a lake.

When I am not paying attention to it I can enjoy the sound of music in another room but cannot stand the sound of voices talking on television or laugh tracks or the sounds of action movies, the explosions, the rifle cracks, the hoofbeats etc.

I like Shane Koyczans voice.

I find the sound of rainfall can be relaxing but only when I know I don’t have to go out in it.

I find the sound of other people eating in a cinema as amongst the most irritating. Stop rustling that bag, I’m trying to listen to the movie!

@downtide I can’t stand people eating or talking in a movie.

I didn’t answer the second part of the question. I dislike car alarms and honking horns. I dislike the noise pollution of people with their stereos too loud. I dislike the sounds of most ringtones and mobile notifications. I dislike the sound of a television on when no one is watching it. I dislike the sound of dogs barking – especially the little yippy ones.

The worst sound in the world (other than someone crying out in pain) is a whining child.

I just spent all of last night trying to sleep while a cat meowed the whole time. So that’s one noise I am not a fan of at the moment.

Most annoying: The alarm clock, particularly when you do not need to get up and just forgot to turn it off the night before.

Most relaxing: A light rain falling on a corrugated metal roof. particularly at night while abed.

Also love the sound of a mountain stream twisting and tumbling past my campsite.

I detest the self-aggrandizing voice of Rush Limbaugh and the shrill caterwauling of Ann Coulter.

Most nights I have a box fan running, both to aid with air circulation in the room (which helps my sinuses), and to block out noisy neighbors, etc. However, if it is raining, thundering, snowing, sleeting, or the wind is blowing constantly, I turn it off and open the window at least a little to hear what are for me some of the most relaxing noises. Ocean waves breaking on shore also have that effect on me.

Annoying…not sure. Sometimes certain people’s voices, lol!

Oops, I also dodged the second part of the question…

The sound of a motorcycle that is clearly the result of a purposeful muffler/pipes choice (ya know the one – sound like a Gatling gun in slow motion) makes me hope upon hope they lose in a game of chicken with a semi.

@cookieman Across the street that my window opens out to is a motorcycle parking lot. The worst part is that a lot of motorcyclists are cocky and love to rev their engines a million times before actually leaving.

@dxs: That would drive me to distraction.

@cookieman My window is on the third story, so it’s not as loud as it could be. I keep my window open anyway because I love the fresh air, but the noise can get annoying late at night.

Any sound that is man-caused [drippy faucet instead of rain] has an irritating predictability. That includes CDs with clips of thunderstorms, surf breaking, brooks gurgling, birds chirping because you know they are finite and you lie there waiting for the CD to finish. Nature surprises you and that is why it is soothing.

@yankeetooter I too turn off the AC fan when I hear rain.
My Jillycat lying on my chest and purring is also soothing.