The first soundwalk I went on was an extremely different experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Those I walked with and I found several places where we could listen intently and observe the sounds around us. A parking garage, a small field of grass, a campus cafeteria. All these places had distinct noises particular to their space. The parking garage was engulfed by an ominous buzz collaborated from the ceiling's dim lights. From the small field, cicadas and crickets could be heard making sharp, piercing screams that almost seemed electric, or mechanical. The cafeteria was a loud busy place where multitudes of conversations melted into one incoherent babble.
When we moved from place to place the closest noises were those that we made. Note papers crinkling from gusts of wind, rhythmic beats of footsteps, short clicks from pens, key chains and coins dancing in pockets like sleigh bells. Leaves, crushed beneath our feet, and then scraped again by shoes refusing to leave the cement mid-stride. Though somewhat distracting, the sounds made by us the walking, and were very hard to prevent.
An interesting experiment we did was observing noise with our ears and, afterwards, our eyes covered. With our ears plugged I could mainly hear the very loudest noises like booming diesel bus engines or nearby car horns. I could also hear the nearest noises, although very faint, because they were inside of me. I could hear myself breathing, my heart keeping pace, and my thoughts more clearly. My mind was primarily attempting to make up for the common noises around me that I couldn't hear. I was replacing sounds I saw, like people talking, walking, cars driving far away, or the wind blowing through the trees, with what I could only guess they sounded like from memory. I've connected the experience to something near "getting a song stuck in your head". You hear the noise in your thoughts even though the song isn't physically playing because you remember what it sounds like. The reverse happened when I covered my eyes. I could hear the physical noises, and replaced them with visions of what I could imagine them actually being caused from.
While we walked I kept a constant record of what I heard, limited only to how fast I could write. I plan on scanning these pages and posting them in the near future (once I can get a working scanner) mainly because the poor penmanship and scribblings amuse me. For now, however I'll give you a few legible samples of the text.
Bug, crickets chirping ( consuming)
Wind rushing through trees
Uncomprehendible chit chat
One-way, two-way, three-way convos
"Tumor or tutor?"
Planes, jets, screaming overhead, trailing off
Car engines starting
Text books being thrown into empty dumpsters
Skateboard violently scraping the cement, gliding over cracks and bumps making distinct pitches
Laughter in the distance bounces off the tall buildings around us
Disruptions, scorning laughs
Kicking rocks into brush
Cars race back and forth like a battle
Conversations I am not a part of
Cars are clean, dirty, liquid, metal, rubber, bouncy, cement, close calls, rhythm of of the different segments of
cement being plucked by tires like strings of guitars
Of these sounds I could place there were many I could not. Loud noises in the distance, mostly bangs or booms, were
able to elude my memory. I was also able to grasp out farther with my hearing and detect a hum that stuck in my mind
for a very long time. I was only able to detect this noise on the soundwalk and have not been able to find it again.
I can only guess that it is either the accumulated sound of the city or a sound I produced in my head of the collective
memories I've created. Perhaps every horrible song that I ever "got stuck in my head" all jammed together. Creepy.
Wind effected the soundwalk experiment in a very huge way. The wind distorted everything you heard by the directing it
was blowing and the position of your ear. If the wind was blowing directly into my ear that was all I heard. If it came
from behind or in front of me and passed by it changed the noises I heard, like blowing over the top of a glass bottle.
This new experience I've taken a part of has changed my views on noise. I'm more aware of what is around me. Even
sitting here blogging this I can hear the city outside my window. The cars streaming down the street, victorious yells of
rowdy football fans, the hum of buildings and traffic in the distance. I am now more aware, and therefore more able to
shape the way I create the medium of sounds.
