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When I keep the door wind shields of my car pulled down, I experience nothing but a cacophony. Jarring obnoxious noises everywhere. Amidst all this, every once in a while, a thumper (Bullet Motorcycle) passes by and gladdens my heart, sorry my ears.

Yes ears! It's the thumping sound that endears Bullets to owners and non-owners alike. The thump is almost music to motorcycle lovers. So the nickname. And I feel, so the brand and so the cult.

Indeed for quite a few people it might not be music. It might be another machine making noise. But isn't that the case with many a form of music? For some, rock is still nothing more than head banging rubbish.

I am gonna make a couple of shackle-raising points here.

We are surrounded by so many machines and invariably all these machines make some or the other kind of sound. It's often claimed and proved that music is the ultimate form of aesthetics and experiencing beauty, and is instrumental in changing our moods. If we are surrounded by cacophony all over, it might be that the noise would result in unpleasant effects (and sometimes serious ill-effects) on people in general.

Now, world over product designers are so concerned about noise that increasingly we find machines which do not give out much sound. Is that good? Two points here:

1. Sounds can be turned into music. That's not news, I know. However, in the context of designing machines it might just be. The thump of Bullet is music to motorcycle lovers. I feel the same when I drive my Chevrolet UVA (though of course the sound's audible only to the driver). In case of Bullet, guess the music was an inadvertent result of the engineering that went into building the machine. Can product designers and engineers deliberately consider aesthetics of music as well while designing products instead of nurturing a single minded obsession of suppressing all sorts of sound? One might say, what's the need for machine sounds at all! That brings me to the second point.
2. Sounds are indicators. When a piano-player mistimes or puts even a finger wrong, as a listener you know how it disturbs the flow and kills the pleasure. Smooth functioning machines give out a certain rythm. You hear the sound and you get the rythm. Any deviation or disturbance and you know something's wrong. Why not make good use of these indicators? Why not enjoy the rhythm and the music?