Fall of the Bumblebee

Introduction: The Experiment

  In the year 1934, Professor of Psychology Arthur Goodwin was composing a theory on how music affects the human brain during sleep.

Arthur Goodwin had worked as a therapist to a number of students and tutors alike in his London University, and was surprised how a number of his cases seemed to be due to insomnia. Arthur Goodwin was an insomniac himself, and had to take opiates in order to get the slightest bit of rest at home. Though he noted down a number of reasons as to why he and his patients suffered with insomnia, finding reasons were easier than finding a cure.
So he set out to do some research on the known affects to outside stimuli on the human brain.

While he was writing the first draft of his synopsis, the radio was playing Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee. Goodwin became agitated by the fast-paced music and debated whether to turn it off or wait until a more soothing song came on after.
That was when he had an idea on what to test.
Beforehand he had indeed offer the idea to his patients that soothing music would help them to sleep, though in many of the cases it didn't work. He then wondered if instead of a much slower, soothing melody with simple and less complex instrumentals, what if instead he were to take a musical piece that would usually be more frantically fast-paced with intricate levels of various notes composed within the same time space, and were to somehow slow it down until it the tempo was greatly decreased yet still retained the same complexity as something like Flight of the bumblebee.

He took to the study of different fields in music psychology, based on the written theories and experiments by Carl Stumpf and Wilhem Wundt.
His theory was that the different layers of a variety of high and low notes playing at the same time space as one another, used in such a piece like Flight of the Bumblebee to create a sense of chaotic motion, would evoke certain parts of the subconscious brain when slowed to a more more slower and 'peaceful' melody.
However, knowing that this experiment was to be the basis of a future treatment (as he had hoped), he also considered studying the works of Clark L. Hull and his studies into sensory hypnosis. He realised the piece didn't just need to be slowed down, but that somehow the structure of the modified interlude had to bring the subject into a deeper and deeper level of the subconscious as the song play, whilst simultaneously inducing a feeling of peace and tranquillity for the subject.

His overall aim was to create a hypnotic musical piece that would cure insomnia, with Flight of the Bumblebee as the basis of this melody.

He decided to humorously dubbed this new theoretical piece as 'Fall of the Bumblebee, as he described his choice in title as being 'the idea that the bee would be slowly drifting asleep in the midst of its hectic flight, and thus begins to plummet towards the ground until he feels completely weightless in his deep slumber.'
He then further added in his personal notes, 'if this experiment proves my theory correct, I too hope that me and my patients will sleep as heavily and as weightlessly as that falling bee.'

As he made arrangements with the university to provide the funding to carry out his experiment, his wife, Joan Goodwin, helped in gathering up test subjects. She insisted to him that they did not use any of their current patients due to their already precarious mental conditions amongst their insomnia, so they agreed to test the theory out upon themselves and three close friends they would invite over; young upcoming author and English Literature student Esther Allen Drake, the state attorney of Massachusetts Henry Montague, and finally Egyptian anthropologist and archaeologist Amir Kharagosh.

As Arthur Goodwin set about to record the piece, Joan set a date for the experiment to take place; the night before Christmas Eve.

After many trials and errors, Arthur Goodwin finally concocted what he proposed was the recording of the highest quality he could, and with the aid of recording technicians he managed to slow the song considerably to about 800% slower than the previous recording. He wrote down in his notes how the session took place; he insisted to the twenty-six piece orchestra that they played the song much faster than usual upon his instruction. It took a total of four sessions until Goodwin had a recording he was happy with, but at the cost of three of the musicians fainting from sheer exhaustion.

Now being that said, no known written record of how exactly Goodwin and his technicians altered the music exists. It can only be assumed that immediately after the experiment, he destroyed his notes along with the records themselves. Only his personal journal entries and loose transcripts of himself and his companions remain as the only evidence.

Finally, on the 22nd of December 1934, Arthur and Joan Goodwin along with their three companions joined in the early holiday celebrations of dinner, wine and gossip. After the festivities had passed, at actually 9 O'clock, Arthur Goodwin insisted that they all retired early to bed. He had prepared a gramophone in each of the rooms adjacent to their beds, each with a vinyl copy of "Fall of the Bumblebee".
Each guest was spread throughout the house in a different guest room, so each person would have their own experience, with the exception of Arthur Goodwin himself and his wife, who will be in their usual bed together, to see how the song would effect a sleeping couple and if it would provide some other form of sensory stimulation when more than one person shared the same experience.

At 10 O'clock, as per instruction, each of the five persons played the gramophone and drifted off to sleep as the slow melody played.