I found a great example of binaural beats being used in electronic music recently. Go fourth and listen to The Chemical Brothers “The Golden Path” from Singles 93-03. A great song in its own right, with vocals from Steven Drozd and Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips. But the really interesting part is the chorus, which features tremolo-heavy, overlapping ‘aaaaaaah’ sound. When listening with headphones, it’s a beautiful example of binaural beats and a stirring experience.

I stumbled onto binaural beats back in college. The idea is relatively simple to grasp: suppose you have two sets of tones with different frequencies, i.e. 100 hz and 110 Hz. When played together, those tones produce a beat with a frequency of 10 Hz, the difference of the two tones. This happens because the peaks and troughs of the waves overlap to produce a higher and lower amplitude at a regular interval. The interval is specified by the difference between the two beats.

Now suppose you have a pair of headphones, and the tones are isolated to each ear. The binaural beat is audible, but exists only in the brain as the result of perceiving the separate tones simultaneously. There’s a bit of controversy over whether or not this has a therapeutic effect, and an unfortunately little research has been done. It’s freaky though. I’ve experienced similarly odd brain states resulting from flashing lights, particularly when getting in late with my bike’s LED light flashing in an otherwise completely dark basement. More than once I’ve been compelled to consider how epileptic fits have been triggered by flashing lights at just the right frequency. Brains are fascinating things.