This was such a great post. Though I love music, I too find the silence to be filled with rhythms and timbres that have melodies of their own. Melodies I would not want to mask with external sounds.

I look forward to listening to these podcasts. Thanks so much!

Here’s the story, with a little background.
Hebrew nouns are generally built on patterns known as mishkalot (singular, mishkal). One particularly common pattern is to prefix a מ to a root. Another is to put the vowel /u/ between the second and third letters of the root. There are many more.
After the pattern is built, vowels are added according to rules.
In the case of a prefix מ, the מ before the first two letters of the root normally creates three consonants at the beginning of word, which almost always causes the vowel /i/ to be inserted between the first and second consonants of the trio. Finally, the default vowel /a/ is inserted before the final consonant. So, for example, from G.D.L, we get MGDL then MIGDL then MIGDAL (“tower”). Similarly, MISHKAL, MIVNEH (with no /a/ at the end because one isn’t needed). Also, MAQOM (with no /i/ because there are only two consonants at the beginning of the word). And so forth.
In the case of the /u/, normally no more vowels are needed. So we have ZVUV (“fly”). But a SHVA under an א at the start of a word normally becomes /e/. So we get ELUL. (This is the same /e/ we find in, for example, ECHTOV [“I will write”].)

I hope this helps.