“There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example—where had they gone?…It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh…What has already silenced the voices of spring in countless towns in America?”(2-3)
“Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds. The early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song” (Carson, Silent Spring, 103)
The concept of “soundscape” refers to the constellation of sounds that emanate from landscapes and reach our ears in a given moment. It is credited to R. Murray Schafer who studied the sounds of various habitats and demonstrated that each soundscape uniquely represents a place and time through the combination of its special blend of voices, whether urban, rural, or natural. Most recently, the emerging field of soundscape ecology has challenged ideas that “seeing is believing” and has provided us with new ways to register the ecological health of habitats and to awaken us to the expressivity and creativity of nature.
The idea of this assignment is to encourage us to pay more attention to the sonic identity and makeup of our environments, to the unique gathering of sounds specific to wherever we happen to live. Pick a particular location in the High Country that includes both natural and man-made sounds. Go to the location, sit and take note of all the sounds that you hear for 20-30 minutes. Write a short (1 page) analysis of the location’s soundscape, why you chose it, how other people or beings might experience it, what happens there, what makes it unique ecologically. Try to be attentive to the extent to which the soundscape reflects the clash, connection, or overlap of natural and built environments. Consider making a 30 second video/audio recording and/or taking photographs to support the claims that you are making in your analysis.
In your analysis, make sure that you include:
- Location (the street address as close as possible; consider mapping your location and providing the web link in your reflection)
- Specific references to the assigned readings by Thoreau and Carson
- The time of the day, season, and date.
- A list of the sounds you heard, e.g. mechanical sounds, biological sounds, geological sounds, unexpected sounds, quiet sounds, loud sounds, slow sounds, fast sounds, ambient sounds, etc. Aim to provide rich description of the sounds themselves, and not just an explanation of what makes the sounds. Before you are tempted to write “I heard cars, birds, or planes”, describe the sound that you heard, and not merely the source of it. Pay close attention to the frequency, pitch, volume, duration, tone, and timbre of the sounds. Reflect on the aural identity, mood, atmosphere or presence of the place. Think about how the layering and mixture of sounds can create a sonic identity as unique as a fingerprint, and how it might shape both the humans and nonhumans that find themselves in such a place.
As you are completing the assignment you might reflect on any of the following questions and themes:
- What kind of sounds are these? What do these sounds say about the place where you heard them?
- What sounds would you describe as the ‘keynote’ sounds? These would be the sounds that, in your experience, contribute most to the acoustic signature of the place. Do you think the acoustics of the location vary over the course of each day or season? How?
- In The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World’s Wild Places Bernie Krause introduces the term “biophony” to describe the composition of sounds created by living organisms, “geophony” to describe the ambient sounds of wind, rain, thunder, and so on, and “anthrophony” to describe human-generated sounds. Reflect on the distribution of biophony, geophony, and anthrophony in the acoustics of your location. Was any one dominant at the site? Would you describe any of the sounds that you heard as “noise,” “aural litter” or “audible trash?”
- Were you alerted to any sounds that we have usually learned to ignore in our everyday lives? In the context of the profound ecological changes that are taking place on this planet, which of these sounds do we want to encourage, multiply and preserve? Would you identify any of these sounds as harmful or beneficial for ecological well-being?
- Thoreau’s chapter “Sounds” in Walden suggests that music is already an aspect of the environment, which does not need to be translated or represented. He concurs with Krause who encourages us to approach the world as a macrocosmic musical composition. Based upon your listening experience, would you agree or disagree with Thoreau and Krause? Is nature capable of composing music? Is nature a composer? If yes, what difference does it make? Did you register any clearly discernible voices, signatures, or compositions produced by local ecosystems? Did your experience sensitize you to the acoustics of the location as a mode of awareness, as a means of receiving messages from the environment?
Your responses are due by midnight on March 17. In addition to your written reflection, you are encouraged to upload images or/and recordings of the site that you visited.
SD 3800 Voices in Sustainable Development 
Kayla Mounce
Professor Anatoli Ignatov
Classics in Sustainable Development 3800
13 March 2018
Front Porch Symphony
Saturday, February 10th, 2018: I sit on my front porch located on a 200-acre beef cattle farm in Wilkes County, NC. It is gently raining and the land is engulfed in a cloud. It is unusually warm for a February afternoon and the landscape, dreary and still, remains far from quiet. Although it is still technically the middle of the winter season, sounds of spring are emerging all around my being, across the landscape, and within the sky. The landscape has a gentleness and calmness, yet it is full of life through the songs of the creatures of the air. The happiness of their melody is contagious. The tune of their hum is full of color, beauty, and interest. All of the wild seems content and cheerful, all sharing the joyful sounds from within their soul. The rustle of the breeze in the trees is chilling, yet delightful. It stirs mist in the air, making the atmosphere feel fresh and clean. As Henry David Thoreau describes in Walden, “the wind was favorable, a faint, sweet, and, as it were, natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness” (116). Thoreau thinks of nature as a composer, and as I sit here listening to it perform, I could not agree with him more. The sounds of the ecosystem surrounding me seems to tell me its story and teach me valuable lessons, such as to relax and not worry and to be content in and with my being. Every part of the landscape, its beings, and the elements make up an orchestra, and I am enjoying the symphony. The drizzle of the rain is ever so light, and in the distance I can hear the flowing of water in the creek. The landscape is serene and melodious, captivating all who take the time to enjoy it. Much like the landscape Rachel Carson describes as untouched by humans in her book, Silent Spring, “life seems to live in harmony with its surroundings . . . Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden in the midsts of the fall mornings”; life here is beautiful (3).
The scene is wild and peaceful, with only extremely distant sounds of automobiles and signs of other human life. Urbanization has not touched my utopia. No sounds of television or cellphones are here, only an occasional tractor motor, gentle mooing, distant rustling, and a gentle snore of my dog. Many people claim there is “nothing to do” or that “it is too far from town,” but they have not slowed down enough to truly enjoy the all-encompassing beauty of this tranquil place. People who do not see the excitement here have not stopped to listen. This is a place of escape from what has become my everyday life. This place is far from hustle and bustle, loud buses, and large populations. This place is my home.
Link to Location: https://www.google.com/maps/@36.2606648,-80.9170856,297m/data=!3m1!1e3
Link to Photo: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13FFMiQVLvV1d9tlX5L6wxxI1L-oHdSfVMffRKEpWcpM/edit?usp=sharing
Works Cited
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Mariner Books, 2002.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Beacon Press, 2004.
I sit on one of the monstrous rocks that overcome a third of the backyard, the ones that my sister and I jumped from one to the other when we were small and bored with the old-people talk in the kitchen. Back then there would be the bustling of pots and pans, silverware hitting against each other with a clang of anticipation, the smell of freshly-prepared honey ham and the chatter of my parents with our aunt, our grandparents. These days, I hear much less of this obvious noise and only the noises that we once found transparent. The “background” noises, the ones we took for granted, but are now standing out oh so loudly in juxtaposition to the now empty kitchen facing the backyard, the now empty home of my grandparents. My sister bought this house in order to “keep the house in the family,” but we all know this house doesn’t belong to any of us. It becomes ever evident in the squawks of the birds and the rustling in the leaves that those who owned this land before us were happy to take it back after we got our use from it. Silly humans: always taking, never appreciating. The places where rakes once ravaged the land for my grandmother’s garden now bustle in the midday breeze. Overgrown and passing one layer of leaves to another. The wind whispers as it passes, almost whistling as it whips in between the branches of the tall, bare trees in the late winter February afternoon. I brush my fingers on the rock and hear the resistance between my fingers and the grainy exterior of the stone. If you were to breathe too heavy, you wouldn’t hear it. I bare my fingernails. The sound becomes more harsh. I brush my fingertips again. I brush over the moss that covers a majority of this ancient artifact- I feel so many things such as the water that this moss has absorbed even though there hasn’t been rain in a week- the soft, spongy texture doesn’t make a sound- rather it seems as if it sucks it in, escaping the ears of humans, but it is known that entire worlds of life live on the surface of the moss. Their sounds are here, but like the sounds we once heard in the kitchen on Mother’s Day, the chirping of the birds and whirr of the wind overpowers them for now.
I watch as the small white flowers, mostly products of free-grown grasses and pollination, move quickly in a clockwise motion, made into whirlwinds by the blow. Their movement seems silent to me but surely resound in another faint pitch if only my ears were properly tuned. I watch them and remember page 263 of “Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors,” where Thoreau brings up the life of the small lilac which outlived the people who used to settle there.
“Still grows the vivacious lilac a generation after the door and lintel and the sill are gone, unfolding its sweet scented flowers each spring… planted and tended once by children’s hands, in front-yard plots- now standing by wall-sides in retired pastures, and giving place to new-rising forests;- the last of that stirp, sole survivor of that family. Little did the dusky children think that the puny slip with its two eyes only, which they stuck in the ground in the shadow of the house and daily watered, would root itself so, and outlive them and house itself in the rear that shaded it, and grown man’s garden and orchard, and tell their story faintly to the lone wanderer a half century after they had grown up and died…” I think of the way that my grandmother worked so hard to plant beautiful, bright flowers that stood tall. My sister and I would lug the tipping water pot behind her, hoping to bring life. Life never left, and over six years later, with no one to care for them, these small flowers persisted, unbothered.
The woodpecker reminds me of his domain- he has not resisted once since I came onto his property. The sound of a nail being driven into wood, “wop,” “wop,” “wop,” his calls move quickly in a succession of 6 or 7 pecks, and then slower for 3, and then starting fast again. The leaves and flora that have fallen around the various perimeters of the yard say their prayers in shuffles and whispers with another gust of wind. For a moment when the trees sway, the birds will lower their praises, only to resume moments later. They speak to one another, with a bird calling from the northwest corner of the house, another answering from a rock a couple feet away from me. I wish that I knew how to communicate to them, too. Thoreau speaks about the voice that humans have lost with nature on page 111: “We are in danger of forgetting the language which all things and events speak without metaphor…” At one moment he begins to shake his wings in an effort to fly, and then denies the impulse. His wings make a soft flapping sound against his body “whap,” and then all is quiet again. Another gust and a snap in some background narrative, a branch that was only a little bit too weak to hold itself against the blow. It falls to the ground but it is light so it only disturbs the sediment sifting on the ground floor. Although a light fall, like a pencil falling onto a piece of paper, its soft thud resonates with acoustics across the span of the backyard- starting in the front and repeatedly thudding, softer and softer until its sound is absorbed back into the branch itself. I hear the wind and then the thud and think of the “interrelationships and interdependence” vital to ecosystems that Rachel Carson speaks of on page 189. I think that if the wind had not blown, the branch would not have fallen. In a similar way, if the soil had toxins in it, the birds would land on it and become sick. Thank goodness this land has been safe from intense industrial processes, at least to which we are aware.
I snap out of my thoughts and the thudding has finally finished its last curtain call. There is no doubt that nature creates its own symphony- a collection of melodies in different pitches and hues- ready for who will listen but playing their instruments regardless of who will choose to hear it. I hear a car horn honk and remember that this backyard, mine and my sister’s magical forest only a decade and a half ago, has been subject to much development during that decade and a half. Although the backyard was retained perimeter-wise, its solace was interrupted as a subdivision was brought up behind the backyard, about a tenth of an acre behind the home. I try to tune it out but when I concentrate, I hear the whir of cars driving by. Every once in awhile you hear the brakes screeching on a car that stopped suddenly for a stop sign. A lawnmower starts up a couple streets back- it is a beautiful day, why not spend it outside? If only we spent it with the rocks and moss more often. An ambulance blares down the main road towards the university area. It’s siren grows louder and louder, then quieter and quieter. This symphony is hard on the ears- one that moves in a way that its instruments break mid-play and its players bump into one another recklessly. They make noises but they tend to be more interruptive than flowing. I think of the roadside that Rachel Carson spoke of on page 1, that had “laurel, viburnium and alder, great ferns and wildflowers that delighted the traveler’s eye” among them, but then of the roadside she spoke of on page 3. “The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with brown and withered vegetation as though swept by fire. These, too, were silent, deserted by all living things.” Surely there are still flowers living amongst the intense frequency of the car horns, but how long will it take until our industrial ways multiply to a point of non-cohabitation with our brothers and sisters in nature?
At times like this I try to tune myself back into the fluctuations of the birds, salamanders, bacteria in the mosses. I try to remember the backyard of 7325 Vero Lane as it once was: a magical wonderland. It will only ever be this again if my sister doesn’t move in and leaves the home to its rightful owners. But we know this will not happen. Their squawking will only get louder, little girl. We have already taken so much and they will not let us take more. They already have enough songs of their own and they create new ones each day.
Location via Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/place/7325+Vero+Ln,+Charlotte,+NC+28215/@35.2535903,-80.7307981,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x88541f29df5cf855:0x51af75971ee9490f!8m2!3d35.2535903!4d-80.7286094
Location Photos:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/175PnYqYftgpaRhmipy9bZs2LE5uJjRbPfGDgexrsre0/edit?usp=sharing
Maria Buskey
Picnic Table Peace
Saturday, February 24th 2018 was an unusually warm day for winter in the Great Smoky Mountains, partly cloudy with a high of 68 and a low of 50 with no chance of rain. I sat out on my splintering picnic table with my steaming hot cup of coffee listening to the music that the warm temperatures brought. I live on top of Blueberry Hill which is surrounded by both large and small hills. Below me is the echoing grinding of a manmade machine that goes back and forth forcefully pushing the earth from one place to another. To the left is a flattened area that a young boy uses as a track for a vehicle that is not used for anything more than riding in circles, creating marks that grass is unable to grow through. Above me is Mabel Elementary School that has a walking park and basketball court open to the public. Through the bare trees and up the hill I hear laughter and basketballs hitting the paved court. Every once in a while, a vehicle will go speeding down Old Mabel School Road causing frantic reactions of the life around it. Bernie Krause introduces the term “anthrophony,” in The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World’s Wild Places to describe noises made by humans.
While listening to the noises people create, I think about Rachel Carson who says, “For time is the essential ingredient; but in the modern world there is no time. The rapidity of change and the speed with which new situations are created follow the impetuous and heedless pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of nature” (Carson 6). I think about how quickly the man moves the earth and how easily they built the school. Rachel Carson recognizes the effects the pace of people has on the world and that includes sound, which she shows by talking about the silencing of birds. What sounds like it is coming from several different places, is the barking of multiple dogs, including my own who barks loudly due to my inattentiveness and his desire to chase after a chewed up stick. In front of our house, I can hear the cackling of hens and their scratching through the fallen leaf debris in search of a crawling snack. At the end of our road, there are two small goats that every once in a while let off a long drawn out cry to one another. Krause refers to the sounds made by all living organisms other than people as “biophony.” Although warm and full of life, the overgrowth of weeds are withered and dry creating an unruly noise when the breeze flows past them. The trees still lack leaves so when the wind picks up enough, the branches rub vigorously together.
Not only can I hear the breeze through the life around me but I can hear it whistling by my ears. Krause uses the word “geophony,” when speaking of the sounds made by wind, rain, etc. I chose the area around where I live because it is both out of the city, where more natural sounds may be drowned out by the hustle and bustle of cars and people. My home also has a good balance of other noises created by wildlife. In Walden, Henry David Thoreau talks about being in the woods but still hearing anthrophony sounds. Thoreau can hear the bells from the town and even seems to enjoy the sounds of the bells by saying “when the wind is favorable, a faint, sweet, and, as it were, natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness” (Thoreau 123).
Link to Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/place/133+Blueberry+Hill+Rd,+Zionville,+NC+28698/@36.324076,-81.748115,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x8850f6278687c80b:0xb7beb768b3e370cf!8m2!3d36.324076!4d-81.748115
Link to photos: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QHAhMKaotNxw3dugGVgGkpJhjh1HdfvHZv5RwzZ6_cQ/edit?usp=sharing
542 Sherwoood Rd Vilas, NC 28692
As I sit in front of the barn on my friend’s property, I hear the rain falling onto the dead leaves on the ground. There is a natural rhythm to the rain’s pitter-patter and it coincides quite well with the babbling brook adjacent to the barn. The sound of the creek is constant and soothing. The water running down the creek bed washes over the rocks systemically smoothing them, and rounding them out as time, gravity, and water weaken their structures in order to return them to the natural sedimentary cycle. The sound of the creek is certainly a keynote sound. I have really enjoyed the peaceful geophony of this location. Many of the natural sounds I absorb on this gloomy Sunday originate from water and various birds. I watch a small bird run out onto a branch and hear the dead tree twigs rustle against each other from the weight of the bird. After a little extra research, I found that the bird was a Red-Breasted Nuthatch. At first I was curious to hear the bird’s song but the Wikipedia page I found had a soundbyte of how the bird sings, and it sounds like an alarm clock. I am glad that the bird remained silent during the duration of my time outside. I also heard crows making quite a hullabaloo in the distance. I would certainly categorize the sounds of those two birds as audible trash. I find it interesting that the two animals I noticed both make incredibly terrible, annoying sounds. This speaks to the fragmented nature of this habitat because these two birds are in low trophic levels, and I did not see a single predator. I also think the time of year has a large impact on the animals I have observed because we are in the last few days of winter. I will certainly be back to this location in the spring to note any differences in fauna.
I was surprised that there are so few sounds that are man made. Besides the occasional car whizzing by on 421 North about a half mile away from the residence I am at, the only other sound I heard was music coming from the speakers inside when the door would open. These are sounds that I have become essentially numb to and usually ignore them in my every-day cycles. These sounds cannot be good for ecological well being because they must scare and deter animals away from their natural paths.
I believe nature is a composer and I would certainly agree with Thoreau and Krause. I think the acoustics are different today because the landscape is saturated with this weekend’s rainwater. I am sure the acoustics of this area will be incredibly different as the deciduous trees spring back to life (pun intended). Nature is a natural composer, and we can learn from the sounds that natural ecosystems produce. I think the lack of sounds in this environment speaks to the health of this area because such few birds indicate a lack of biodiversity, which in turn means that the environment and its inhabitants are struggling-likely a direct impact from human activity.
Sources
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Penguin Books, in Association with Hamish Hamilton, 2015.
Thoreau, Henry David, and Bill McKibben. Walden. Beacon Press, 2004.
Julian Price State Park’s Orchestral Existence: February 10, 2018, 2:00 pm; wintertime.
One soft footstep after the other into recently saturated soil I walked, following the forlorn footprints of others before me. Apart from the gentle clicking of tree limbs in the crisp winter breeze, and a whirring of the wind that caused a deeper rustle of the mountain laurel’s waxy leaves, I heard the deliberate sinking of rubber soles into replenished ground, reminding me that I could not emanate such sweet and natural sounds that harmonize with the blend of already-perfected notes sung by something so delicate as the wind whispering in the trees.
I can close my curious eyes and focus on the melodious tones of the birds hopping in the underbrush, creating a gentle rustle that reminds me of the company that I keep; I can fathom all things with a distracted mind, until my ears become my eyes, and I grow attuned to the softness of the woods. There are lilting warbles and clicking pine needles and high-pitched insect noises that come from the delicate ice crystals dancing on the shore’s edge, remnants of the wintry climate that kissed the lake’s intimate holler. And normally, human presence might detract from the whimsical sounds being carried by the breeze; but in such a case as this, Julian Price Park enhances the motivation for people to walk the already-beaten path to the far side of the lake, the bridge and its cars still present across the water. Just connected to nature with one foot still situated in civilization, the bridge, the footpath, and the trees all construct the landscape that is the park.
Rachel Carson noted, “Nature has introduced great variety into the landscape, but man has displayed a passion for simplifying it” (14). Simplification might have been directed through the bridge’s construction, or it might have come through the erection of the boathouse. Whatever the inclusion, the sound of heavy plastic knocking into the lake’s submerged rock faces is equated with the chipper birdsong trilling on the breeze; each lends itself to the rich symphony of sounds emanating from the park. Nowhere else is there quite the overlaying of gentle birdsong, deciduous branches brushing together, or tent flaps and people’s voices as there is in the Blue Ridge’s unique park. It shapes the park’s very nature and inspires the visitor’s experience with its unique beauty, and just as Carson speaks to the beauty of birdsong (60), so do all of the combined sounds become the beauty of the park itself.
My Front Deck
2742 US Hwy 421 N
Boone, NC 28607
Spring / March 16, 2018 / 2:00pm
I chose my front deck because of the stream that separates my house from noisy Highway 421. This stream often is drowned out and ignored because of the sound from passing cars, trucks, and buses. Evidence of lack of regard for the stream litters the bank with garbage such as beer cans and styrofoam to-go trays. The trash is reminiscent of any weekend night on this deck in which one would hear the sounds of college students partying in each house. I wonder what toxins are silently carried by the water, how old they are, which ones are newer and unheard of even during Rachel Carson’s time. I wonder how much life is in the stream so littered with visible and invisible poison. Carson writes, “The fisheries of fresh and salt water are a resource of great importance, involving the interests and the welfare of a very large number of people. That they are now seriously threatened by the chemicals entering our waters can no longer be doubted” (152). I wonder if the silence and absence of life at my stream carries on as it heads towards the sea and leaves a trail of death and silence. As I sit and look at the stream, I am more aware of the sounds of it. I feel more able to single out the running water and ignore the passing cars. I hear the slow rush of the water passing over the rocks until it hits the pipe where the water travels underground again. The stream is only visible in this small section. It runs under my house and out to this little pit then back under the road. Around the bank of the stream are large trees that rustle softly each time the wind blows, although not very loudly because they have not yet sprouted leaves for the summer. I hear a leaf scooting across my gravel driveway until the wind picks up more leaves in a rush. This sound is unexpected to me because so often the sounds of the leaves is white noise and unnoticed.
No matter how hard I focus, the passing vehicles are too loud to ignore. I am reminded of Thoreau’s passage in Walden: “The whistle of the locomotive penetrates my woods summer and winter, sounding like the scream of a hawk sailing over some farmer’s yard…” (109). In my case, the scream of the locomotive is substituted for the roar of vehicle engine motors. I hear an SUV then a pause and the stream again, then a truck and three more cars and a jeep then another pause from the sounds of the manmade environment. I can only hear the stream in those pauses. The cars come in bursts – the only noises I hear are peaceful and natural. Then, five cars drive by at once and the noise is almost deafening, but not nearly as loud as the truck that just charged up the hill. The stream in front of my house is a barrier where we hear the sounds of nature and can find rest. However, the rest is only so long until another burst of cars drives past. This symbolizes our short-lived and shallow experience with nature. My roommates and I feel lucky to have this huge deck to look at the stream and Beech Mountain in the distance. However, the deeper we look, the more trash we see litters the stream and we feel apathetic towards its care because we do not feel culpable. One minute does not pass without a car motor whizzing by; the anthrophony constantly overpowers the geophony. There is hardly a sound here that does not whisper the history of human destruction. The stream is cut short and pings when it reaches a pipe that humans forced it to go down, rather than stay in the light. The leaves only make a sound when the wind carries them across the manmade driveway. The trees cannot complete a full breath of wind before a car passes, tires hitting pavement and motor powering up the interstate. I find myself happy here because it is beautiful to look at and the sun warms the deck. However, the lack of natural noise is infuriating and makes the space less tolerable for me to truly relax and meditate.
Howard Knob County Park
604 Howard Knob Rd
Boone, NC 28607
Spring 2018 / March, 17 / 8:30 AM
It is an early Saturday morning; I sit on a rock in the wooded area of Howard’s Knob, putting enough distance between myself and the manmade gravel roads and trails and the chainlink fences that mark the boundaries of the park. It is early spring – the air is still crisp and heavy with the promise of rain, but the longer I sit, the more I notice the trademark sounds of the season emerge around me.
I find that it is easiest to take note of the distinct noises that humans make: the engine of a car that pulled up shortly behind me and the sound of its tires in the gravel beneath it; the start up of a power tool, maybe a chainsaw, on a nearby property; a man making indistinct calls, presumably for his dog; and the revving of heavy diesel engines or motorcycles as they draw near and then fade away while they drive down distant roads. Initially I rationalize these sounds to be the most unmistakable because they are what surrounds me every day, but as I keep listening, I realize they are so recognizable because they seem to harshly interrupt the otherwise harmonious sounds that nature is creating around me.
It is colder up here – there is no budding grass or flowers and still snow on the ground from the week’s snow storm. There is a thick layer of fallen leaves and sticks that crunch any time a squirrel runs through the woods and that rustle any time the wind blows. The wind – it blows at my back and sometimes it’s so loud I think another car is pulling up to the park only to realize there is no crunch of gravel or eventual door slamming. I hear birds sing their early morning songs – to me, the most telltale sign that spring is approaching. I hear what I think to be a turkey call, and a few minutes later my suspicion is confirmed when the sound of crunching leaves picks up suddenly and I look up to see 20 or so turkey running through the forest, talking to each other, and listen to the path they take as their steps fade distantly into the woods. A few light rain drops begin to fall, and I listen as they hit my jacket and the rocks and the ground that surrounds me. I think of how these sounds work together in harmony, what interactions around me are causing them and I am reminded of Rachel Carson’s statement in Silent Spring, “In nature, nothing exists alone.”
I start to notice a constant background noise that doesn’t sound as natural and is easily unnoticeable amidst everything else and begin to focus on that. It almost sounds like a generator, or a plane that is constantly flying above me. Eventually I attribute the noise to the town at the base of the mountain. Nothing specific – not the cars on 421 or the people in the street – just the town. The peace is suddenly interrupted again by someone yelling sharp commands and heavy footsteps on the gravel road. I hear heavy breathing and men cursing from exhaustion and I turn around to realize I am no longer alone in the park, but suddenly a large group of men in army uniforms and large packs have appeared from the road. I hear the chain link fence rustle as they crawl below it and continue running up the hill. I am unexpectedly acutely aware of the human generated noises again; they seem to drown out the natural. I pick up my things, and I leave the park.
Winkler’s Creek by my Apartment
259 Wilson Dr Boone, NC 28607
Spring
March 17, 2018
11:40 am
When I first discovered this spot in August I thought of it as a little slice of nature amongst chaos; a hidden treasure for me. My apartment is located in a busy area in Boone right by the backside of the Boone Mall. This creek is a very interesting ecosystem. I chose it because it is wedged between businesses and apartments and still finds its way through, moulding itself along the paved landscape surrounding it. Even though this little section is basically a forgotten piece of nature and most people wouldn’t notice it, it still plays a very important role. Even my cat uses this small piece of nature to play in, a blue heron landed in the creek once, many birds find perches in the bushes along the bank and sing with the soft babbling of the creek. This place is a small safe haven for critters in an unsafe environment.
However, you can see the physical influences the human landscape has on the tiny ecosystem. Trash is scattered along the banks and caught in the branches. You can also hear the influence. Sitting by the creek, you can hear the constant low humming of the air conditioning machine from the apartments and my neighbours yelling for their dogs while they use the bathroom. You can hear the crickety and low motor sounds of cars driving by in all directions like surround sound. Thoreau describes the locomotive that “penetrates” through his woods. This word “penetrate” represents Thoreau’s view of violent interruption that man-made machines have on nature. However, my location is not as secluded as Walden Pond. These motors are no longer interruptions but a part of the ensemble; which shapes the people and nature in this place to become immune to the unnatural sounds surrounding us. The birds still continuously sing along in their high pitched trills and low caw-caws along with the continuous sound of motors. It is almost as if nature and the man-made are singing together, harmonizing with their low and high pitches and competing to take the spotlight in the symphony.
No matter the season, this place composes the same music. The aural mood of this place is melancholy. Even the birds seem to sound distant, almost as if they were indifferent about their audience because they know their audience has become indifferent about their performance. The creek babbles on slowly without any particular admiration from others. Rachel Carson would agree with the apathy towards nature I am describing. In chapter 4 of Silent Spring, she says “In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference.” Depending on the weather, the creek can crescendo from a soft babble to a wooshing flow, composing a more angry song. The pavement around it causes this creek to flood and fill with trash. Even among this gushing rage from one of our most vital resource, men choose not to listen.
When I sit here, I feel a weird sense of urgency from looking at the immense pollution and also a sense of relaxation from the calming sounds of birds and running water. It is a weird conflict of emotions. I think this conflict represents the clash of the biophony/geophony and the anthrophony. It is as if the pollution of this creek is more than the actual trash, but also sound pollution. The man-made world here is discouraging nature to compose its music. It’s as though the human applause for the natural symphony is getting weaker.
Sounds Of My Home
Hickory, North Carolina is the town in which I grew up. Within this town, I have lived in the same house for as long as I can remember. It is six o’clock on March 17, and I am here at this house I call home, 5824 Deerfield Lane. This is my home of all homes and nothing will be able to change this concrete fact. As I’m sitting on a worn down chair on my always familiar back porch, an array of sounds reach my ear. When Thoreau describes the sound of “..Birds flitting hither and thither..” I can relate to this as one of the sounds that is most joyful and also most common here at the house (108). It is a consistent chirp coming from the mouths of what I take to be at least four or five different species of birds all in conversation with one another. Along with this, a faint rustle is heard in the background when the wind passes through the leaves of the trees. Thoreau mentions frequently how the sounds of nature are entertainment, and how he could sit and listen to the sounds of the environment around him and get lost in time. The sounds of this back porch sitting truly are entertaining. All of a sudden as I’m writing about the beauty of the sounds, a bird must have sensed it and decides to sing out louder than the rest in a rhythmic high and low pitch chirp. As a reaction to this, a new and louder conversation arose among the birds in my backyard.
The calming sounds of nature contrast with the stalls and revving of my brother-in-law learning how to drive my dad’s stick shift jeep in the backyard. Low hums reach high and low pitches depending on how fast the car is going and what gear it is in. The birds are unaffected by this event; they do not mind sharing their backyard with anyone. Carson mentions the absence of birds in this tragic stricken town she created when she says “The birds, for example- where had they gone?” (2). My backyard is a stark contrast to this place Carson speaks of because it is obvious that birds are happy to call this place home, as am I. The jeep does not bother them, nor does the quiet purr of the cars entering the neighborhood in the near distance. The environment in which my house resides is in good shape because the birds have not felt it necessary to leave.
My family is just inside the back glass door and I can hear a quiet chitter chatter. I can also hear the pitter patter of my dogs’ feet on the tile and hardwood as they run around and play with one another. It is not often that my whole family is in the house we all grew up in at the same time, but tonight is one of the rare nights that my family of five is together all at once. The conversation inside is pleasant. The sounds of the talking pairs nicely with the talking of the birds, both participate in a friendly conversation. Thoreau talks a lot about the noises of animals, trees, and the environment itself. He also speaks of the sounds of trains and cars. One sound he does not mention much, if at all, is the sound of fellow human voices. One downside to the experiment at Walden pond is that Thoreau did not have another person around to hear their voice in sync with the voice of nature. This combination of both human voices in conversation as well as nature in conversation with itself is a more dynamic sound that Thoreau would have appreciated.
The state bird, a red cardinal, perches on the biggest shrub in my backyard. I imagine him as the king of all birds in this yard with the loudest voice and the loudest presence. This cardinal considers my home his home too. The cardinal on the shrub outside and my mother, father, brother-in-law, two sisters, and three dogs inside my house are all family and a resident to this piece of land in Hickory, North Carolina.
Location photo: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BVGD0T5N1jfNsrfJJNZJgkFIcbMIsqrFsESypnoIdZg/edit?usp=sharing
Janett Castillo
https://www.google.com/maps/place/E.B.+Jeffress+Park-The+Cascades+Trail/@36.2495716,-81.4717772,14z/data=!4m8!1m2!2m1!1sjeffress+park!3m4!1s0x88510113d5285e27:0x86c362ed29fffc15!8m2!3d36.2445722!4d-81.4580726
I first drove past Jeffress Park in the summer of 2017. It was getting dark but I could still clearly see some buildings on the right. They appeared to be in the style of old log cabins and that immediately hooked my attention. While it was too dark to stop then, I spent the rest of the year occasionally thinking about that place with the old log cabins. Going to new places is challenging for me sometimes and I finally drew up the courage to just go. So I went this afternoon of March 17. I never imagined it to be so much more than what I saw from the road that night. A trail near the cabins eventually led to a roaring cascade and nice informational plaques on the native flora. Even in the late winter, the many different species were still distinctive and special. The mystery of the place drew me in and I look forward to sitting and listening some more in the future days of wonderful sunshine.
I was sunny today and comfortably warm for the first time since the weird warm spell in February. It seemed some other people had the same idea as me: get outside. Sometimes you just wake up with a yucky feeling and the only thing that really makes it go away is some good air and exhausted legs. So I remembered the place with the cabins and I drove over.
Walking through the patch of woods before the cabin, I stopped because I heard a strange sounds that I was not familiar with. I could not figure out where it was coming from because it had multiple sources. They were insects. Insects waking up and crawling about, making the dry fallen leaves crackle in the way they do when it is raining lightly. It was only after stopping that I began to pay close attention to the sounds around me. Sounds other than the loud snapping of twigs under my feet and me stumbling over the roots of trees. I could hear birds every few minutes. I was surprised there were not more but I guess most are still in shock from the cold and snow we just got. One bird forced out a sort of squawk, I can only imagine it was a crow. The swooshing of tires on pavement less than three hundred feet away followed this harsh sound. But comparing the two, the car seemed the harshest. Not entirely out of place in this world and on the Blue Ridge Parkway but it just seemed too mechanical a sound to be hearing in the woods. But this sound was heard four more times in the twenty minutes I was there in that spot. Each swoosh could be heard faintly at first and very suddenly much louder. As it increased in intensity, there was an overlapping sound of an engine, a deeper hum. Some not a hum at all and more of a grumble. Almost as quickly as it appeared, the swooshing faded again and there was almost complete silence in the seconds afterward. Between them (the swooshes) was another bird, this one a sweet tweet, a pleasant whistle. I hope to hear more in the warmer months, but maybe it’s the cars that frighten them.
The pond near my house
One Love Lane
17 March 2018
2:30pm
For this assignment, I chose to spend time at the pond behind my house near Caldwell Community College. In the summer and fall, it is so hidden that I had no idea it was there until my roommate pointed it out to me in December. Nestled between my street and White Oak Road, it is astonishingly quiet despite the vehicles and trucks passing by on the 105 Bypass. While only one lonely house sits next to it, there are red Solo cups and beer cans littered all around working as a reminder of college party culture in this secluded neighborhood. There used to be much more litter, but the leaves from autumn have hidden most of it, leaving what appears to be a clean slate. Sitting next to this pond, with the remnants of past parties, I wonder how many people know this place is here. If they did, would they appreciate it? Some might think that the sounds coming from the highway take away from it, but as I sit here, I barely notice it at all. Instead, I hear a woodpecker, likely the same one I wake up to every morning, pecking away at a tree trying to find food and the sound of my neighbor chopping wood for a bonfire. I find myself daydreaming of the summer and what this place will be like in just a few short months, surrounded by towering, green trees instead of the monotone colors of winter. With a new appreciation for this spot, perhaps I will have to return over the summer and see how it compares.
Location: Ashe County Park (Ashe Park Rd, Jefferson, NC)
My listening location was at Ashe County Park on March 18th from 5:30 to 6:00 PM. To give an idea of the landscape it is an area with a lake in the center and trees surrounding on most sides of it. I went a couple hours before sundown so there were not a whole lot of other park-goers outside of the few people playing the disc golf course. I spent a little over 25 minutes in the wooded area near the 15th disc golfing hole. The wooded area is just a ton of trees a far enough distance away from the rest of the park to not be able to hear the playgrounds and cars driving in and out of the park.
The noise would generally come in randomly except for a few constant sounds. The constant sounds were of rustling, some low pitched “woo” noises, and of various chirps. These were the three sounds that seemed to be at “home” in the area. It was a windy day so the rustling could be attributed to the leaves that were still on the ground from fall or maybe a critter hobbling through them. There was also a rustling sound coming from the trees swaying in the wind that I could not classify as a rustle but more of a very calm and melodic noise almost like running water. The “woo” noises came from above, since I was near the top of a hill I attributed this to the wind that was going over the tree line. Chirps were one of the most interesting sounds since there were various different choruses that, while being independent of one another, weaved together without clashing. There was a particularly persistent non-melodic single squawk that happened in succession in groups of 3 to 6 squawks that was the most dominant of the bird noises (I believe this was probably a crow).
Outside of the constant noises there were some random sounds. There were two that were particularly noticeable, one being a loud revving noise that would crackle every now and again. This seemed like a car with an aftermarket exhaust of some sort as the crackles were just as noticeable as the revving. The second noises were just some random conversational noises. At one point there was a “Damn!” and some laughing with an added in “You’re trash” afterwards that gave me a good chuckle. I assume someone made a bad disc throw here, which, with all the trees, is pretty easy to do.
During the points where it was just the constant noises it was pretty serene. It really made me feel grounded in the natural world. Thoreau makes a point on page 166 stating “The scenery of Walden is on a humble scale, and, though very beautiful, does not approach to grandeur.” The footnote related to this sentence makes the statement “Its powerful lesson is that normal, quotidian nature can inspire great love and insight.” The wooded area I was in was nothing special, literally just some trees, decaying leaves, and the various critters and birds that would make themselves known. Often times we try to get something more out of a landscape, but the calm and tranquil qualities of nature can be experienced anywhere, it is us that impede on those qualities. I would not say this is negative though, since we are part of nature, but just like with the birds that were observed, we can over-assert ourselves into an environment and lose grasp of the grounded beauty of a landscape.
As I sit in this lonely cemetery, cars fly by it at a speed that make me want to think they’re fleeing it intentionally. Dorm rooms overlook, the college of education and the bus circle sit idly by, and every 15 minutes or so a bus hits the loud exhalation of steam and that sound comes bouncing through the gravestones to where I’m sat. Its spring now, and there is a bird chirping incessantly on one of the higher trees behind me. Even a block away up Howards knob there are always at least half a dozen birds chirping or dancing around my yard, and yet here the city noises dominate that of the wild. I can hear boys yelling apologies at each other for some drunken miscommunication the night before. The sun is in my eyes, and Howards knob looms off to my right, almost glistening with blue after a brief spring shower. It is now spring that I’m writing this, because I am a detestable student, and so the green has just today returned to our mountain oasis. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there is a great echo in the sky. I scan the heavens to see if I can find this plane, maybe civilian, probably military. Strange to sit in a cemetery surrounded by peaceful, albeit human noise, and it occurs to me that a great booming sound might be a state of the art military death weapon casually cruising over my college campus. But now the college boys are yelling at t each other again, and the day seems to go on unchanged. Another bird surfaces on the far end of the cemetery, and I can hear trucks accelerating down 321. The rustle in the leaves above me create a sort of ocean like steady noise, but now that I’m instructed to, the constant beep and whine and croak and groan of a vehicle is all that I can seem to hear. I remember standing on a mountain with a friend recently, and we couldn’t tell if the sound we were hearing was the wind or a highway. The strange things we become accustomed to after so much exposure to, military planes, trucks screaming, frat boys drinking, and yet we complain when we are woken up by an overly energetic bird at 7am. I’ve been sitting here for a while thinking of what to say, but I think I’ve realized that all of this mechanization, this 20 story construction, these high glass walls, all of this comes from a fear and an unawareness of the reality of the world; we cannot plan it all. These green spaces sit empty scattered throughout our society, where a lone bird and a sycamore tree stand defiant, proving that they have never and will never need us. Not truly. We provide nothing but the land they live on, and even that we are taking away exponentially. These remnants of the forest stand defiant and tall, and they produce leaves and offspring every year, no matter the strangleholds we put on this town’s natural life. Does the cemetery land yearn to be that like Howards Knob, forested and safe? Or is it content being the last refuge for a wild thing caught in a land of pavement and tunnels. The wind has begun to howl now, and it’s getting harder to hear the roar of the street. I see three birds land on the grave of Ms Alice Hardin 1869-1961. They seem to be bathing themselves. Why do we shut ourselves inside on a default basis? Two rabbits scurry by on the right hill, and run into a nest of trees and bushes, only for 3 to dart out chasing each other in and out of the gate. They see me now, and although they are apprehensive, they walk closer to get a better look. And they’re chasing each other again, round and round the perfectly manicured green. How curious to see such innocence and truth just running around the cemetery. Could this place, while being a sacred and feared spot for the deceased ancestors of Watauga county in fact be a sanctuary for the living, but rejected parts of human society? Where our fears and insecurities and our desire to kill comes face to face with our mortal remains, where the rabbits run in circles and birds find the final insects of the city. The wind is blowing again, and its taking my book along with it. Better get out of here before I become like the wild.
Photo links
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1w3ei6TZeuQWmxsbG1ET0JVc0JtWnpibDk0SVQzM0FHS2Jz
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1w3ei6TZeuQVW92WkdnQm14S3JCM3ZCNURXcWdQRWp5RWxv