Post #2 Soundwalk

For an hour on a chilly Monday evening in NYC I partook in what R. Murray Schafer would call, a ‘sound walk’. My starting point was 68^th and Park Avenue in the Upper East Side, as I preceded downtown I begun by honing in on the loudest and most prominent noises. Walking along Park Avenue never felt so eventful, the lack of pedestrian noise made it evident of its residential rather than commercial use. While walking, I noticed that whenever I focused on a sound, even if I couldn’t see the object, I would have a clear image in my mind of where it was coming from. The more I heard (and thought) of sound, the more meditating the exercise became—I then started to breakdown these sounds and figure out what actually makes a particular noise associate a particular image. For example, when I focused on the sound of the nearest truck, the heavy moans from the engine in combination of a squishing, crackling and mechanized air pressure were a few of its characteristics that indicated it was in fact a garbage truck I was hearing. I then started to break my associations down in order to hear the sound with a less biased attitude towards them. The chimes of dog leashes would fade in and out. The revving bus engines, angry and aggressive. I even overheard AT LEAST 5 different languages in passing conversations. A cough, a sneeze, and even a sigh, I even heard sounds id never really paid attention to, like the gentle creak of a street sign swaying in the wind.