Drip, drip, drip, plunk, plish, plosh, pop, gurgle, burble, babble, whoosh, hiss, roar…

What is water without sound?

The beauty, artistry and importance of water doesn't merely captivate the eye. It also enchants the ear, and a growing number of people are listening.

One East Coast center touts water sounds as a stress-buster for recovering alcoholics. Another author suggests using water sounds for comforting mothers in labor.

A gardening Web site notes that drops from a pinpricked water bucket into a pond can act as a bird magnet. The manufacturer of a hearing-aid device uses water as a background noise to cover up the ringing of tinnitus.

Most notably, there is the surge of interest in water fountains, which is as much about sound as it is about vision.

According to Homeworld Business Magazine, the market for fountains - or as the industry likes to call them, "calming ponds" - has exploded within the past few years from 100,000 units in 1998 to 1 million in 1999 to 3.5 million in 2000.

Ranging in price from under $20 to thousands of dollars, fountains began hitting mass-market popularity in 1999, about the time that Michigan-based HoMedics began manufacturing its EnviraScape line.

"We saw fountains becoming a trend in a rather pricey market," and sought to make an affordable version, HoMedics spokeswoman Tami Estes said. The company now offers 19 designs ranging from $20 to $250.

"We experiment with different designs to get the desired sounds," Estes said. "We watch this closely because water sounds is one of the key reasons that consumers buy fountains."

What are they looking for?

Rather than plops or splashes, when consumers call up HoMedics with their views, they want "the sound of flowing water," Estes said.

Wal-Mart has noticed a similar trend.

"The most popular water sound our customers look for in fountains is babbling brooks," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Susanne Decker said.

Among those who tout the healing powers of water sounds are the fountain-makers themselves.

On its Web site, New York State-based Beyond the Rainbow had this to say about the sound of fountains.

"Listening to a fountain is like sitting beside a waterfall or swiftly flowing stream. The sound of running water is soothing and relaxing. It helps to block out less harmonious noises, and if we focus on it, can also block out the unharmonious noises inside our own minds.

"If you live in an environment characterized by intrusive noises, which can be distracting to meditation, the sounds of a fountain help to prevent such distractions. In addition you can consciously focus on its sounds in order to release the mind from ordinary consciousness into a deeper state."

At San Diego-based Mannion's Indoor Fountains, Paris Mannion helps do-it-yourselfers customize fountains to get the sound they want.

When it works, "it sounds to me like the river of life," she says. "You want something that's quiet, and restful and calming and soothing…"

While some hear nature, other customers hear Nature calling.

"When they say 'It makes me want to go to the bathroom,' that means they don't know what the remedies are," Mannion said.

When water falls from up high and hits a pool of water straight on, "it makes sounds (like) you're urinating. If you break up that flow by having stones, pebbles or shells it will diffuse the water more and create a gentler sound," Mannion said.

"If it is a shorter fountain, then you get more a rippling sound and if it's a taller fountain more of a cascade effect, where it's like a waterfall.

Water in a channel, she said, has more of a bubbling, rippling rushing sound--something that can be used in a (child's) bedroom as a lullaby fountain.

For Mannion and her customers, personal taste is a matter of adjusting the water flow, the strength of the water pump and the depth of the bowl.

"There is a wide range of what's acceptable," Mannion said. "They're easy to do without too much fiddling…a shell here or a stone there…"

Why do humans find water sounds so appealing? There might be any number of deep-seated reasons.

Water is present in the womb, in the placental fluids that course around the fetus. The rush of water is the signal that birth is imminent. From the time of infancy, the sound of water is synonymous with being washed, fed and just plain cooled down.

It could be considered deeper than that. The sound of water is a soundtrack for all living things that stretches back billions of years. Imagining life without hearing water sounds is like imagining air without hearing the wind, or talking about light without ever seeing a sunrise.

Or maybe the appeal is more prosaic—as simple as the fact that humans like using water as white noise. Sixty percent of Americans use background noise to help them relax, concentrate or sleep.

Consider the surge of interest in sound machines, the devices with a half-dozen sounds available at the push of a button. Although down about 10 percent from its 1998 peak, sales of sound machines have topped $35 million from 1996 through 2000. One luxury hotel chain even equipped its rooms with them.

Although there is an endless variety of relaxing sounds to choose from, at least half of the sounds employed on machines tend to be water sounds, such as rainfall, ocean waves and mountain streams.

When HoMedics introduced its sound machine, it looked to previous hot-selling models. But it also did "sample things in our office to see what is most popular to our employees," Estes said. And water sounds were among the most popular.

Along with Tibetan bowls and mellow melodies, water noises have also played a supporting role in New Age therapies.

There is a school of sound therapy that holds that an overabundance of low-frequency sounds can harm the body, and a listening regimen that progressively eliminates those low notes is beneficial. Water sounds are considered high-frequency nature sounds that are popular with these practitioners.

Some see a close link between water sounds, water fountains and feng shui design principles.

In its Web site, HoMedic touts 13 "Feng shui-inspired designs," and says the ancient Chinese practice prescribes that water elements such as fountains or pools can help resolve "energy blockages." In addition, fountains produce a "white noise" effect, helping the listener block out the chaos of everyday life. By forcing out inharmonious background noises, the relaxation fountain creates an atmosphere that renews focus and concentration.

Not all feng shui practitioners agree with that assessment, however.

Helen Pietrusiewicz, a scholar at the Monterey Park-based American Feng Shui Institute, notes that along with fire, earth, metal and wood, water is one of the five elements of classical feng shui.

This is one case where the sound-masking qualities of water fountains might be counterproductive.

Classical feng shui tries to block the flow of negative energy—sha chi—into a building. Sha chi includes anything that offends the senses, including loud noises. However, according to the principles of classical feng shui, using a loud sound to cover up another sound could create its own form of negative energy.

Some artists and audiophiles have a fascination with water and its sound.

Chuck Plaisance has recorded Brazilian rainforests, Hawaiian waterfalls, Malibu waves, Louisiana thunderstorms, bathtubs and bubbling Jacuzzis.

Based in the Los Angeles area, Plaisance has issued scores of compact discs for consumers and a five-disc set of cinematic sound effects where water plays a major role. He's heard the low-end steam engine churn of volcanic Hawaiian waterfalls, the high-frequency sounds of misty small waterfalls, and the mid-range sounds of water hitting water.

Although Plaisance has his sound library playing constantly in a 200-CD changer, he finds he needs something more.

"In my living room I have a couple of fountains… To sleep at night it's just incredible," he said.

Researchers have not isolated the impact of water sounds on human physiology, but one 1997 study came close.

Dr. Lee S. Berk, formerly of Loma Linda University, and currently assistant adjunct professor at UC Irvine College of Medicine performed the study.

Ten patients dealing with cancer and chronic pain watched a 30 to 40 minute videotape, at least 15 minutes of which were devoted to the sounds of the ocean, waves, waterfall, creek, the splashing sound of the creek and birds bathing in water.

Over the course of the video, patients experienced a 20 to 30 percent reduction in detrimental stress hormones such as epinephrine (also known as adrenaline, it causes high blood pressure and increased heart rate) and cortisol (which can cause steroid-like release of sugar into the bloodstream).

The video won two Freddys, the American Medical Association equivalent of Emmy awards.

"The ancients (understood that you) could recharge your batteries if you could sit down by the creek and watch the water, or by listening to waves crashing on the beach…All cultures have these times of quietude," Berk said.

A case in point is the fountain in front of the Aquarium of the Pacific, in Long Beach, Ca., where people are drawn to the ocean sounds created by its design.

"Science is starting to catch up to intuition," Berk said. "Our mood state is made up of neuropeptides, neurotransmitters and so they affect the rest of the body. Our mood state is biology. The mind-body linkage is very real, it's not mystical."

If water sounds have a harmonious impact, then why confine them to the home? Why not make them part of our public spaces, especially in semi-arid regions?

Can we use water sounds in public art, and compose a symphony in water?
It's already being done.

At Universal City-based WET Design, which has come up with a global array of water fountains, it's no coincidence that one of its senior designers spent nine years at a Manhattan music conservatory.

"Water is a medium similar to what paint is to a painter or clay to a sculptor," Liz Martin said.

While WET Design's crowd-luring Bellagio hotel fountain on the Vegas strip involves the use of music, most of WET Design's works rely simply on the sound of water for their aural effect.

A grid of nozzles in a square can be manipulated to create various visual patterns that can all be sliced and diced down to 1/16th of a second.

Those visual patterns each create their own sound. A tall stream of water creates a longer and louder sound, while a shorter one creates a delicate, lighter sound. Aerated, frothy water provides a stronger sound, while more transparent water has a more delicate effect.

A sound pattern can act like a musical theme, reappearing throughout the program.

Like an accomplished drummer, an effective water fountain soundtrack involves "programming the silences as much as the sound," Martin says.

And a composition requires different instruments.

The "laminar stream" provides the sound of silence. It creates the turbulence free "leaping parabolic arches of water" that charm the camera-toting tourists at Disney World.

There's the pop jet that creates a little popping marble of water, and the continuous flow nozzle that creates a rushing sound. There is compressed air technology that can shoot water up to 20 meters high. It creates a whoosh sound similar to when a player blows air through a woodwind or trumpet while changing the mouthpiece.

Combining the different effects can be like conducting the different sections of an orchestra, Martin said. The water sounds can be random whimsical patterns that are almost like John Cage, or geometrical formal patterns more like Paganini or Rachmaninoff, often in the course of the same piece.

Of course, one doesn't have to be a music scholar to appreciate the sound of water.

"If you are really hot and you hear water, it makes you feel cooler, just by the sound of it. Before you even get into the shower, hearing the shower makes you feel cleaner…" Martin said.

"There is something that draws people to water and there is very calming about the sound of water," Martin said. In a Pavlovian response, "you associate certain things with feeling refreshed," Martin said.

Humans are captivated and drawn toward waterfalls, fountains and other moving bodies of water, and "it's the sound that leads them there."