Sound Walk

* Were you able to find places and spaces where you could really listen?

Yes. It really helped when you weren’t around the traffic but that was hard to come by so just being around the houses away from the busy streets helped to truly listen to what is around.

* Was it possible to move without making a sound?

Is it possible… probably not you can be quiet enough that your ears can’t pic it up but when you are moving you always make noise. Whether it be your feet making noise on the pavement or the sound of your pants swiping past each other.

* What happened when you plugged your ears, and then unplugged them?

When you cover your ears you sort of always have this high pitch resonance sound that you can’t get away from. But it’s weird looking around and seeing all these things that normally make noise and not hearing anything you are used to. When you unplug your ears it’s an overwhelming amount of wound hitting your ears and creating a whole new world to explore that you don’t truly recognize without doing that.

* In your sound log exercise, what types of sounds were you able to hear? List them.

Soft rumbling of trees blowing in the wind, Irritating click of a cricket or grasshopper, Unmuffled rumble of a motorcycle, Soft pleasant chirping of the birds, gentle humming of the birds, jingle of a dog’s collar.

* Were you able to differentiate between sounds that had a recognizable source and those sounds you could not place?

Not with distinct clarity… no.

* Human sounds? Mechanical sounds? Natural sounds?

Oh yeah you can always tell what sort of thing is making a noise whether it be human machine or nature. There is always that distinctness in sound.

* Were you able to detect subtleties in the everpresent drone?

On occasion but you truly had to listen to what you were hearing otherwise you get lost in the drone of noise that is overwhelming.

* Extremely close sounds? Sounds coming from very far away?

I found that the sounds from far off were much more interesting because you had to figure out what they were. They weren’t right there in front of you for you to see what and where the noise is coming from.
* What kinds of wind effects were you able to detect (for example, the leaves of trees don't make sounds until they are activated by the wind)?

The trees and leaves were definitely present when you were listening along with that gentle humming of the wind. But in some places it even seemed that the wind would hit something and it made a sort of whistling sound that was fun to hear.

* Were you able to intervene in the urban landscape and create your own sounds by knocking on a resonant piece of metal, activating wind chimes, etc.?

I don’t think we did that…?