“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 October 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 
The location I recorded at was on my back porch which is in Boone near Boone Mall. My recording was done on October 8, 2018 around 8pm at night, the season is the very start of fall. I chose this location because there are always interesting noises over by my house. I was inspired by Henry Thoreau’s romantic adventures and meditations that he had at night, so I recorded during the late evening which is usually when there is a lot of activity.
The night starts off with the crickets singing in tune with the locusts. One sound is constant while the other holds a steady beat. In the background you can hear the hum of traffic on blowing rock road. The occasional motorist shows off their loud engine while I sit outside and observe the noises around me. My neighbors’ dogs bark at the loud sounds produced by those motorist’s. Every so often I can hear someone’s music playing from their car. Then I start to hear music even closer that is rawer; my neighbor is playing guitar on his porch a few houses down. I like to sit out on my porch especially on Thursday nights because I can hear the live music across the street at Appalachian Mountain Brewery.
From time to time I must settle down my dogs or else all I can hear is the jingle of their collars and the sounds of them grunting and playing. The mood all these sounds make me feel is very relaxed, these are the kinds of sounds I like to fall asleep to. Stated in Walden, “Hoo hoo hoo, hoorer hoo; and indeed, for the most part it suggested only pleasing associations, whether heard by day or night, summer or winter” (Thoreau 2004, Page 118. In this quote Thoreau is talking about the sound the owl makes at night and how it makes him feel. I like this quote because it is talking about peaceful sounds you hear at night. A lot of people use “nighttime” sounds apps that play soothing noises such as owls, crickets, and other white noise which helps a lot of people go to sleep which is kind of what Thoreau is talking about when he says it’s nice to hear at any time. Stated in Silent Spring, “Several dying screech owls were picked up in Wisconsin following heavy rains in spring, perhaps poisoned by feeding on earthworms” (Carson 2002, Page 110). In this quote she mentions how the larger predatory birds start to die off. Without protecting our environment and the living creatures on it, we won’t get to hear the beautiful sounds owls make at night anymore.
I would like to think that most of us identify particular moments in our lives with particular sounds, whether that’s an artist/song or natural/man-made sound. Pretty crazy how sound can transport us back to a certain time or place similar to smell or how we can make sounds to express a certain time or feeling.
Anyhow, It was around noon today when I chose to lay down for a little while next to the stream that runs through the ASU nature preserve that stands behind the football stadium parking lot. I played a lot of music over the weekend so it was kind of hard for me to quite those melodies in my head and start to let the surrounding sounds take their place. As I lay and listened, It was immediate that the keynote sound was the sound of moving water, however, there wasn’t just one sound coming from the stream, there were many different sounds all of which was the sound of water moving through the landscape but all unique and playing in concert together. For example, there were the different sounds of multiple small waterfalls and the sounds of water running through a shallow pebble filled portion of the stream. Each specific “stream sound” had a unique time signature, tone, and depth but I felt like I could pick up on an overall rhythm as they played together. I was very close to the stream and could bearly make out the sound of leaves rustling in the wind over the sound of the stream. It’s funny how when you slow down to really take in your surroundings you start to notice things that you might not have noticed before or at least that often. I don’t think I have ever laid down in the woods and ever really noticed the adventure each leaf takes as it departs from a tree and finds a place on the forest floor, every leafs departure from the tree is unique and every leaf is also unique in color, shape, size just like each sound coming from the stream is unique. Anyhow, since I couldn’t hear much other than the streams geophony I walked about 50 yards past the stream into the woods and immediately noticed new sounds as a biophony of choruses rang in from above me. Crows off in the distance crowed, a lone cicada was steadily humming away up high in the canopy of a large poplar tree, I noticed the abrupt but soft sound as newly departed leaves collided with the decaying leaves on the forest floor. If I had to paint a picture of the mood of the forest by the stream (at least with my senses and my current state of mind) it would be a mood that encompasses both excitement and restfulness with a hint of nostalgia. “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter” (Rachel Carson-Silent Spring).
Given the stress of midterms and getting back home for a brief moment, it’s hard to stop and listen to the sounds around you. It was nice to, for once, get myself away from the harsh overhead light of my bedroom. One of my favorite genres of music is ambient and I love it for how organic it is but fail to observe that same quality in the sounds around me. I chose for this assignment a spot out behind my apartment complex because of its unnoticed beauty and proximity to a major roads and grocery store. My apartment complex is off of Meadowview Rd., so the back of the complex is facing a stream with a good amount of tree cover. The time of day was dusk because it’s probably my favorite time of day. This is probably because of the sky and the coolness of the air. I sat on the bank of the stream where there was a rough path made at about a 50° angle. The flow of the stream, of course, was the first noticeable sound within the mix. This particular night the stream was gentle and quiet because there was no recent heavy rainfall. A quietness not couldn’t necessarily be compared to ominous quiet of Carson’s writings but something like a brief separation from the madness despite being walled in by it on three sides of you. The stream was shallow enough where the water was just barely flowing over the bed of rocks and I observed the glimmer of the water as it flowed over or around each rock. In combination with the sound of crickets, the flow of the water almost sounded like one of the sounds you can play off of a free app to help you sleep. While I would have loved to have absorbed all the sounds that were held between those tree lines, I couldn’t quite get myself isolated enough from the rest of the world. No matter how close I moved myself to the creek life going on beyond the tree line was still in the mix. I expected more noise pollution from the Publix that is just across the stream just passed the other tree line but it mostly came from behind me in the parking lot and on Meadowview Rd. The running of car quickly roaring passed my complex or the squeak of brakes as they roll out of their parking spots felt inconsistent and dissonant with the rhythm and flow of the stream. While not as steady as the stream, the cars overwhelmed me with a pitch that tore through the original mix. Furthermore, the complex itself served more than just light pollution from the windows of the apartments on my chosen spot. The newly installed air conditioning units were placed outside on the backside of the complex and surprisingly enough the sound was pleasant. The units offered a low hum to the mix like a drone in the mix of an ambient piece. The units would occasionally clatter like lightly replacing the lid on a metal trash can but the sound wasn’t harsh enough to cause distraction. I think what I found most pleasant about the sound was its familiarity. As a kid if I were running around all night in the backyard I would feel the cold air on my skin with the sound of wind blowing through the trees, cicadas or crickets chirping, and the low hum of the air conditioner on the backside of our house. It’s an environment I was comfortable with and it’s an environment I will continue to be comfortable with, so these sounds are particularly calming.
The location I chose to listen at is somewhere I sit often and am familiar with, but wish to become more familiar with through this assignment. I sat on a rock under the shade of a tree by a running stream in Durham Park. I arrived in the morning at 9:15 and stayed for about an hour on Monday, October 15. Durham Park is on campus across the street from Subway and Tapp. Above the shady area I sat in, there is a small bridge going over the stream and a few benches. This location is special to me because it has been where I have found a lot of peace continually. It is somewhere I go to feel calm and when I go here, I know that I am doing something positive for myself. This is a place that helps me slow down and be present and I welcome the push to experience the space even more meaningfully and intentionally.
As I sat down and closed my eyes, the normal sense of calm washed over me as a listened to the water burbling and rushing down the stream quickly. This sound of running water has always focused and relaxed me, giving me a sense of clarity. This idea reminds me of a quote given by Thoreau; “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.”(Walden, 90). When I am feeling overwhelmed or frustrated, I have learned to make a conscious effort to heal this through nature and I come to the stream to let things go. I feel inspired when I come here to find peace because the stream has a cleansing ability which washes away any doubts with its unrelenting flow, reminding me that life goes on.
I heard the cars behind me roar down Hardin Street and listened to their brakes squeal to a stop at the stoplight. The later in the morning it gets, the more cars I hear roaring down the road and the more agitated honking occurs. Though this admittedly bothers me, I am able to focus in on the sounds of the nature that I am experiencing. I close my eyes again and I am suddenly listening to the birds chirping which I hadn’t noticed before. I heard a bee buzzing around my colorful shoes and the quiet rustling of the wind whistling through the leaves and tall grass near me. Sitting and listening to all the sounds of nature working together here, I’m reminded of the first couple pages of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” in which she points out that the greatness of nature is being wrongfully devalued. “It was a spring with no voices.”(Silent Spring, 2) was the eerie quote she used to describe this. I am saddened to think that the cleansing voices of the stream, leaves, grass, birds and much more here may be silenced one day. Where will we go to heal?
I was then disturbed by a unexpected and loud rattling sound and looked up to see a skateboarder had just ridden across the bridge above me. I began to notice the sounds of people’s footsteps above me. Some’s footsteps were intentional and their steps made a definitive and rapid clomp-clomp-clomp across the bridge. Others meandered slowly and I could hardly hear their footsteps because they stepped so lightly. At 10:00 sharp, I heard the bell tower making a repetitive dong-dong-dong sound followed by a melody I hadn’t noticed before. This made me wonder how many times before I had not been listening closely enough to hear the beautiful melody.
It was Sunday, October 14, around four o’clock, the year 2018. I walked a section of Boone Creek, starting in the area behind Ram’s Rack Thrift Store and ending behind Proper. It was right at the turn of summer to fall, when cool mornings dip into crisp afternoons.
When walking down the bank into the creek bed, sound transitions from high pitched drone of road noise, tire on pavement, to the lower pitch hum and bubble of water over rocks, rushing, constantly. This water just does not stop until it chances a freeze. The sound of water overwhelms, layers and layers and layers of water on rock, water over sediment, water around tree limbs and styrofoam cups and pvc pipes. There is the regular, loud consistency of the water, despite its inevitable changes in pace and size. It is a rhythm, a drone, a living sound. And there are the undertone irregularities, each rock rippling the water anew, each drip and pop and distant vruh vrooh of a car engine, all overlaid with the hollow, echoing, deep noise of a plane parting atmosphere. Here you can hear space. Here you can hear the echo of sound from side to side down the valley, hearing the shape of the land, the folds and buffers of buildings and forest and hills. This echo continues from creek bank to creek bank, each space filled with water illuminated with sound. Gravity and water, shaping space, sounding space. Snaps, drips, and pops. Every sound coalesces into one, a shining, vibrant tone of living. It is as Thoreau says in Walden, “All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it” (85).
A dry leaf hit a rock, and its sound was a cracking, but light, delicate, a “clack”, a whisper. Water drips from an overhead pipe, and its drop makes a high-pitched “plink”, the drops from impact leaping into their own sound. As the creek transitions from a bed of mineral, pebble and branch to a single slab of rock, the sound changes pitch, urgency, variety. The sounds come closer together. I imagine the rush of water through a plastic tube, a metal pipe, a concrete underpass. You can hear the change, as the undertones of road grow louder. I lean over to pass under a tree branch over the water, and there is a plop! My phone has fallen in.
263 Locust St, Boone, NC 28608, on 10/1/2018 from 3:43pm til 4:02pm on the Sanford mall.
The day was slightly breezy with the sun shining and a few clouds. Over everything else going on in this hub of people you can hear a loud mechanical grinding sound off towards Anne Belk that seemed to be so consistent that it was able to be drowned out. I would call this sound a keynote one because it set the tone. Farther off in the distance towards River street you can hear the loud engine roar and the sound of air whipping as trucks and buses accelerate and shift through each gear one by one.
Closer by there are sounds of crunching and the tap, tap, tap of footsteps; other keynote sounds. Off toward I.G. Greer there’s a clinging followed by the hurried crunching of leaves as a dog chases his ball. Students are walking by; a small thud follows them as a cigarette hits the floor. Behind me is the almost mechanical sound of squeaking and thudding as the doors to the PSU open and shut. Following is the choral chatter of students.
I think Carson would have noted the sincere lack of wildlife sounds. The only sound created by an animal besides humans or dogs was the far off chatting of what I can only assume was a tree frog. I believe Thoreau would have sincerely been off-put but the surrounding urban sounds, the musical composition of nature was over-taken by groaning machines, and people chattering.
For this assignment I woke up on what I considered the first “real” day of fall. A certain atmosphere covered our little nook of the Appalachian Mountains on the eleventh of October that was different from the warmth felt only a week before. I woke up to the sound of pouring rain and the whispers of wind progressing into wails. I got up and sat in my living room in the early morning light and drank my coffee as the sounds of the storm weakened more and more until all that was left were the wind gusts still crying in the background.
I put on a sweatshirt, jeans, and a pair of boots and opened the door to an intense burst of crisp wind. I walked out into the ambience of it all. The skies were overcast, but I could already see them clearing. I got in my car and started the motor. I rolled down my windows to embrace the winds and drove to the parkway. On my drive I encountered the sounds of many puttering engines, thundering construction zones, the fierce rushing of water through Boone creek, tires slapping the asphalt beneath me, and of course the loudest sound of all was the wind.
Once I made it to the parkway I was mostly free of the sounds of other cars. I was all of a sudden surrounded by trees. The movements of the forests matched the sounds of the winds in a certain rhythm that gave the whole scene theatrical undertones. I drove along the parkway until I got to Price Lake. The water was super high since it had just rained. Over the sound of the moaning winds, I could hear the water rushing over the dam, spilling onto the rocks below from the parking lot. I walked across the street and looked at the water pouring over the edge of the huge concrete structure. The sound was bigger than any other. I looked up to check on the clouds and they had not lightened; instead, I saw something equally as breathtaking. Leaves were falling in a way in which they covered the skies, there must have been thousands directly above me, all being kept up by the continually shifting gusts of wind.
I walked back to my car and drove in the opposite direction until I got to the Yadkin Valley Overlook. I parked and got out of my car again. This time, since I had gained some elevation, the wind was much stronger and it nearly blew me over. I sat down on the overlook sign and looked out over the mountains. I remembered how Thoreau talked about solidarity and the importance of spending time by oneself. Times like these are perfect for inward reflection, so I sat and reflected over the past and thought about the future. I listened to the landscape; I heard the rubber slapping the pavement behind me, but did not even bother to turn. I looked over the landscape and saw a lot of forest cover, but I also saw a lot of pastures and developments. I thought about how Schumacher said it was easy to make things bigger and more destructive, but it “takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage” to make things smaller and more sustainable. After this experience, I believe that everyone should venture out into their natural environments, get to know them, explore and adore them, because they might not be like this forever.
The place that I have chosen to utilize for this assignment is Durham Park which is located on the App State campus near the tennis courts and Convocation Center. I chose this place because I often set up my Eno in the trees right near the stream and read a book. I was unable to record sounds because my phone would not pick up a lot of the sounds that I heard. I chose this location due to the unique set up the park offers. Since the park is on the edge of campus and off of two main roads there are many sounds that come through the area.
I sat in the park on Friday, September 28th at 2pm and stayed for a little over an hour. There were a lot of sounds that took place over the course of the hour. Two sounds that were perpetual in the background was the stream running and there were some birds chirping on and off in the tree next to the one my Eno was on. I was close enough to the bell tower that each hour the sound rang pretty loud throughout the park. Slightly farther off from where I was sitting, you could hear the tennis ball hitting the rackets and going back and forth for about 30 minutes. The sounds of the busses and cars going along Rivers Street were pretty loud at first until I began to drown them out.
There was a lot of people traffic throughout the park. I didn’t realize that campus tour groups stopped in the park until two different groups stopped near me to give part of their tour. Students that had classes in the convocation center or had gym classes that met on the other side of the park frequently walked by and I would pick up on bits of their conversations. At one point a student had their dog who decided to jump into the stream and began splashing around in the water. Some of the noises that I picked up on that I typically don’t pay attention to were crickets chirping and birds flying from tree to tree. One of the crickets must have been near where I was at because it was pretty loud for a little bit.
I feel like if Thoreau were in my place he would not find it as peaceful as I did. He would question how highly mechanistic the area was and the lack of simplicity. A quote by Rachel Carson really stood out to me while I was sitting there. She said at the beginning of Silent Spring “Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species — man — acquired significant power to alter the nature of the world.” Sitting in this tiny park, while peaceful, there were still cars going by, buildings scattered all around me, and other ongoing mechanical noises. Humans have altered the world in many ways in order to bend it to be more beneficial to humans and help improve human quality of life. Overall, I thought it was very nice just sitting there taking in the sounds. It was as if there was a symphony of different sounds and they all came together in order to form a slightly cohesive piece.
For this assignment, I chose to spend my time at the greenway in Boone. More specifically I chose to a place on the edge of the woods near the creek that run through the park. It is October 15th, around 7 pm. It’s much cooler outside than it has been for most of the day. The sun has almost set and the park has less activity than it normally does. The fact that it is getting darker really helps when trying to concentrate on the sounds I here. The first sounds I notice are those of people near me playing music and talking. The music is calm and relaxing and the people seem to be enjoying their afternoon on the greenway. There is also the sound of joggers running on the trail next to me. These are all man-made sounds that I’ve heard before on the greenway. When it got dark and the people had gone is when I noticed the sounds of nature. The first thing I could hear is the crickets chirping near the creek. It is a high pitched chirp that only stops for a second and then starts again in a steady stream of chirps. There is also the steady sound of water running from the creek. It’s a calming, light sound that never seems to go away. Every once in a while the steady sounds of the stream and crickets are interrupted by an animal marching through the leaves that have already fallen from the trees. There is also the interruption of cars driving in the parking lot near where I am sitting and construction clapping in the distance. This experience reminds me a lot of Thoreau’s chapter “Sounds”. I feel like I’m not truly alone out here. Thoreau would sit on his porch and listen to the music of nature, but would also get reminders of the sounds of man, like the train that would pass by. I feel the same way sitting in a dark park. There is mainly the sounds of nature, but also the reminder that man-made sounds are all around. Many sounds come and go so quickly, reminding me how fast life can move. For me, the mountains are a very unique place to do this assignment. There’s a lot of man made sounds around us, but we aren’t so far from nature that we don’t understand what it sounds like. We can leave society for a time and connect back to where we came from through the sights and sounds of nature.
For this assignment, I chose to sit on the overgrown, concrete steps on Howard Street across from the ROOTS Garden, as I live in the apartment complex located at 201 Brown Street. I chose this location because I find myself reading or painting here and know the sounds quite well. I sat there this morning, October 3rd, at 9:30am. I found myself thinking about how much Thoreau appreciates the morning and finds it to be the most important time of day, and I have found that I agree, as I usually have to be at work by 7:00am. The first sound I noticed was a bird in the tree behind me to the left, that was singing a three-noted tune over and over again. There were other birds singing their tunes, but this bird was the loudest. Then, I noticed the sounds of the children playing at the daycare that is just up the street. The cars make a sound when they pass by on Howard Street, but none can parallel the obnoxious grunt of the Appalcart as it struggles to not fly down the steep drive, or the intense grunt it makes as it attempts to go up the slope. The wind makes a faint whistle in the short grass next to me, but is louder as it blows through the thick, leafy trees above me.
As I sat on the steps, I thought about how different that place would be without the sounds of the birds singing. Most of the other sounds there are manmade, therefore I rely on the birds to sing their songs to drown out the sounds of cars screeching and children screaming. It is not until there is an absence of a sound that you truly begin to notice it.
I am sitting in the backyard of my parent’s house, the house that I grew up in, in Atlanta, Georgia. I chose this location because I have often felt a slowing of time here just by sitting and taking in the sights and sounds, particularly of the animals. Sitting here, I am reminded of when Thoreau talks about time as a river by which he chooses to fish in. As I sit here, I would describe my experience with time as more slow motion, rather than off and on as I please.
It is October 14th, the best time of the year for weather here. I am reminded of that by how soft and welcoming the air feels. I think I hear the breeze but decide it is not the actual breeze itself, but the rustling through trees and other matter that its movement creates. I feel and hear the breeze approaching from my left as it passes over me. I wonder if the squirrels and birds will feel it as well, though I can not directly see how they are experiencing it. There is a repetitive screech that I assume is coming from a bird that just experienced the same gentle breeze that I did. I can distantly hear my brother and my dad speaking to each other, a deceivingly low mumble that does not accurately represent their loud voices. I see a Blue Jay glide by and though I can not place if its really making the noise, I do hear a noise coming from that direction that bounces along with him. I can hear the chirp of crickets on my left making an identical chirp to the crickets on my right. I hear the same sounds out of both ears and I hear an abundance of diverse creatures everywhere. I think about how all these creatures have created their own ecosystem symphony as Thoreau talked about. I hear an airplane every few minutes that takes over all natural sounds and I briefly lose my ability to hear any living things in the yard. I think of the following quote from Carson: “Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species- man-acquired significant power to alter the nature of the world” Just like that, the sounds of nature had no voice when the creation of man, the airplane, disrupted them all.
Suddenly, I start to realize the sound of my house, a low hum that I assume must be air conditioning but sounds like running water. As I sit out here listening, the sound of the breeze reminds me of memories of my childhood, playing in the trees and creating secret wilderness clubs with my friends and siblings. Though I do not recall always directly thinking about the creatures around me, I know now that there was a world of them beneath my feet and above my head, all with their own voice and dialect. Although this assignment is specifically supposed to focus on sound, I can not ignore the experience that is led by the surrounding smell. It is sweet and floral but most of all, allows me to most accurately recall all that embodies home. I recognize that this smell is coming from a magnolia tree that climbs my house and is unwavering in the breeze. I think immediately of my grandmother and having picnics with her under it when I was very young. I remember her packing me a little bag of chocolate chips and her teaching me how to jump rope. I hear a subtle hammer that disrupts my stroll down memory lane to wonder where the noise is coming from. It sounds like a person tapping but it must be animal in the trees. It is not loud enough to be woodpecker, so I am left with mild confusion that vanishes when I begin to let more sounds approach my ears.
I hear a bird’s cry that begins to seemingly become more urgent and suddenly there is an array of responses to it from other creatures in the form of calls. It feels like the bird will really never stop making the noise, as if his life depends on it. The main thing that I can see is pine straw and trees layered ontop of eachother like a cake. Within the mix there are small pops of color- bright blue blue jays and vibrantly bright red cardinals. It may not look as extraordinary aesthetically beautiful to some who are well traveled. The sounds, smells, and pops of color that all indicate life now and life that has happened in the past remind me of how sacredly beautiful and soul resonating this place is to me.
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Still trying to get those pictures from the drive.. don’t know why its not working
On October 11th, 2018, I awoke to static- or what seemed to sound like static. Sharp, poignant, and reverberating high pitched sounds echoing off of each other all at once filled my ears. Something was off…
I live in a house right on the edge of highway 421 N heading towards Valle Crucis. I have a large backyard that leads to several other houses that share the same property. The acoustic mapping of this location is somewhat of an aural powerhouse- the brass sets the foundation, as the gurgling, humming, and whooshing of cars fly by. Intermittent flutes and woodwinds make their appearance, as the ever-present birds sing their songs. The percussion of high pitched, alarming clanks and foundational booms of lawn mowers and construction work make their appearances as well, creating the monotonous beat for all other noises as the hammers hammer away. This symphony orchestra was overpowered the morning of October, 11th however.
A sound (or sounds?) even higher pitched-so high pitched that they become aural confusion-consumed all other noises like a hungry animal, demanding to be heard- and seen. I arose and stepped out into my backyard, typically teeming with “anthrophonies” and “biophonies” combined. This was different, I knew that immediately. This was a more defined “articulation of nature” (Thoreau, Walden pg 80). Initially, I thought this loud noise came from the overlapping ting ting tings of rain pouring on my tin roof, but that was a sound to which I have been accustomed for some time. As I walk over to find the source of this noise, I stop in my tracks. What usually is a gentle, quiet, almost silently moving stream in a large ditch in my backyard is now a roaring, alarming, splashing river. A becoming of flash flooding, I later came to find out. This rushing river set a bioacoustic boundary for the noises of the cars that threatened to overpower it. The cars were not all that was overpowered by this water, though. I felt the feeling that one feels when making music- “something is missing”.. “this doesn’t feel right”.. The song of my backyard band was missing some of its players: none of the droning errr errr err errrrr of the frogs could be heard, that usually resided by this usually small stream. Then- suddenly, the crescendo of the earth and its movement: wind picked up. The amplifying of white noise and that high-pitched static continued as leaves released their weak grips on the bending trees. ‘Where am I?’, I kept thinking, as the day before the world seemed so content… not quieter, but perhaps sounding less urgent. Nature was not calling for attention then like she was today. It reminded me of when Rachel Carson quotes Dr. Charles Elton, in that I was “hearing the early rumblings of what may become an avalanche in strength” (Silent Spring 265). What other symphonies may rapidly changing weather patterns form?
With the rush of everyday life as a college student combined with the stress of midterms I think it has been a good two weeks since I have been able to just sit and enjoy nature. Two weeks is a long time for me considering I am out almost every weekend so it was nice to have something to force me to take time to get out again. The place I chose was on the bank of Price Lake located on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the late afternoon. I walked back of the Price Lake trail and found and sat at a fishing spot I have not been to before. Thoreau described that “A lake is the landscapes most beautiful and expressive feature” (176). The rock I sat on overlooked the lake and it was forested behind me.
It was raining slightly when I got there but not really the kind of rain where you get very wet. This intensified the amount sound for me hearing the constant sound of water hitting leaves and rain dropping on the lake. It was very soothing to just listen to rain hitting different surfaces. Along with the rain there is a dam on the end of the lake that was flowing over creating a running water sound. It was far away from where I was sitting however the sound carried across the lake. So water is a common theme in my experience. I had only been sitting for about ten minutes when I saw a fish jump in front of me. I was expecting this to happen because of the rain and was hoping it would happen because I enjoy fishing and was hoping this would be a good future fishing spot. The sound the fish made was abrupt and so fast I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if I wasn’t paying attention. This is because the the rain combined with the dam consisted of most of the sound I was hearing. Other than the sound of water everything else was still and quiet. No birds chirping or insects it was very tranquil but also strange.
Sitting on Price Lake I couldn’t help but think of Walden Pond. It was such an essential element to the book “Walden” being right next to Thoreau’s cabin. Thoreau would often walk around or sit near Walden Pond and listen like I was doing. As I was nearing the end of my time at Price Lake a V shaped formation of Canadian Geese flew over the lake. These were the first geese I’ve seen this year and I suppose they are starting their migration south for the winter. They made their distinctive honking as they flew over in the rain. It was surreal because I didn’t expect anything exciting to happen while I was sitting on the bank of the lake.
It is a Monday morning in October, the time is 10:30am and the weather is slightly cool from the beginning of Fall. The swing I’m sitting on outside my house is creaking with each swing and the ropes holding it up are slightly rubbing the tree. The birds in my yard are bouncing around on the fallen leaves and chirping as if they are thanking me for the seed I had thrown out the days before. The swing is close enough to the house to hear my roommates stereo playing music from their bathroom. The road I live on is not a popular one, but this morning it was a little more active due to our neighbors moving stuff in and out of their house. During the morning the intersection I live near is usually packed with people going to work and trucks making drop offs at different businesses. As if the traffic is not already bad enough, the road beside my house is a hill so the traffic is louder from braking and screeching of tires. The sound of a police siren breaks the peaceful sounds of birds, music and traffic. Eight or nine cars, a fire truck and an ambulance drove by. The sound of the neighbors moving furniture
“I watch the passage of the cars with the same feeling that I do the rising of the sun, which is hardly more regular” (Thoreau, 110). The reason I decided to do this assignment in my yard is that it represents two parts of the society we live in. My house is located in a neighborhood right beside a main intersection of Boone and the yard has some natural elements. The neighborhood resembles the life that a lot of people live which is that of a modernized and industrialized lifestyle. The natural areas around my house represent the natural sounds that someone would hear out in the woods. I found it interesting that such calm and natural sounds could exist right beside of a loud and chaotic intersection without being interrupted or disturbed. All things in life seem to have a rhythm and they all fall in sync if you listen to the long enough. When sounds become a norm and then end it is concerning and I think Carson understood this in silent spring.
For this assignment, I chose my parents’ back porch at their house in Todd on October 14th at dusk. The air was crisp and colder than it had been in the previous weeks and I finally caught the first glimpse of fall. As the sun started to set, I became more in tune to the sounds around me and listened as new sounds started to develop. The whine from last few cicadas lingering from late-summer filled the air and seemed almost nostalgic for warmer days. The crickets chirped to create a soothing harmony as I leaned back in my chair. I am reminded of a quote from Thoreau’s Walden, he writes, “I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me” (Thoreau, 124). Thoreau beautifully personifies nature in this passage and describes the feeling of being enveloped by it and admiring the harmonious existence between living things. I suddenly felt interrupted when I heard a lumber truck on a road in the distance, the diesel engine seemingly incongruent with my current surroundings. As I listened more closely, I heard other cars whirring by on the distant road. The neighbors’ rooster crowed and the sun finally disappeared behind the ridge, leaving a faint purple glow behind the tree line. The man-made world seemed to quiet as the sun disappeared, making it easy to feel completely immersed in the natural environment. The occasional faint sound of cars continued and started to seem as if they had belonged in the environment all along. I finally heard an owl in the forest next to the house, a unique sound I have missed since moving out. As I started to walk back inside, I heard a group of coyotes, their eerie howls and yips were exciting but I decided to go check on my cat.
October 14th, 6:30am. My porch, 771 Rainbow Mountain Rd.
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/my-drive
It is still.
The forest is waking, as am I.
There is a gentle rustling of the branches surrounding my house; the morning dew falling from the leaves as a gentle breeze embraces each branch in the glow of a new day. The birds are singing their morning hymnal, a song to greet a new day. Dahlia, my pup, greets me on the porch with heavy breath after a morning rumpus in the woods before breakfast; her warmth and weight on my feet bring an awareness of presence to the surrealness that is the early morning of a Sunday.
It is a brisk morning, following the new chill of a fall weekend after a heavy rain. The leaves are beginning to truly turn, I can hear their slight groan under the weight of the changing season. No one is leaving for work yet. Those who are awake are only beginning to great the day ahead.
As I sit here, sipping tea on my porch with my beloved dog-daughter, I think of the words of Rachel Carson, as it relates to the new, terrifying study released by the IPCC last week. I think of the things that could be, will be lost, if people do not act immediately. Things that are already disappearing directly outside of my window, those things that have been here well before myself or my porch ever existed. I feel worry, stress, fear for those things affected by the interference of man, but most of all I feel gratitude. Gratitude for the ability to take the time to sit out and reflect on my surroundings. Gratitude for the access to the natural world in such an immediate and intimate way. But mostly I feel gratitude that I can sip my tea with my pup at my feet, listening to the world wake up around me.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=3df0a298a8&attid=0.1&permmsgid=msg-f:1614534154363897242&th=1667fa425c98859a&view=att&disp=safe
My apartment complex is on a hill just off 105, so the back parking lot is surrounded by wooded areas just above it. Fortunately, in these woods there’s a trail that opens up right along the parking lot. I chose to walk around the nature trail with my roommate’s dog, Maya, for this assignment. I went in the early evening (around 6:30) just before dark on Sunday the 14th.
The most obvious sounds I noticed were, of course, cars, and leaves crunching underneath my and Maya’s feet as we walked along the trail. The sound of cars was both in the distance and right near me– since my apartment is right off of 105, the sound of cars constantly whirring along the road was always in the background, and as people drove in and out of the parking lot I could hear the low hums of their engines and banging of their car doors as they shut them. The next most obvious and present sounds were the rustling of the tree leaves in the wind, which were not as consistent as the cars, but still there, and the wind itself. Some were really short and quick rustles, and some lasted longer, seemingly picking up intensity as wind gusted through. The wind itself was a constant whooshing, making everything else around it make noise and rustle as it moved through the landscape. Occasionally, I would notice Maya stop and sniff something, then keep walking and crunching on the leaves as she progressed on the trail. There would be random high-pitched beeps and honks from cars as they locked in the parking lot, which disturbed the constant sounds of the wind and trees. After a while I began to notice the slowly fading chirps from birds as they quieted down for the evening. However, the constant chirps from crickets stayed the same. It was a slow, constant, high-pitched sound that I only noticed when I consciously thought about it.
On page 116, Thoreau describes distant sounds: “…for the rest of the long afternoon, perhaps, my meditations are interrupted only by the faint rattle of a carriage or team along the distant highway…Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells…importing into the wilderness.”
This made me think, as I was walking on a nature trail adjacent to a parking lot, of how in modern society (and even in Thoreau’s time) it’s so hard to truly separate yourself from modernity and technology. You can remove yourself from conventional living and go off in the distant “wilderness”, but so long as you can hear the cars and sirens in the distance, you’re never truly separated. It also made me think of how, especially in Boone, this nature trail, equipped with wonderful sounds of nature, is the epitome of how Americans view wilderness: easily accessible and convenient. Even over the sounds of the crunching of the leaves as I walked and the rustling of trees in the wind, the constant reminder that society was right next to me was always there as I listened to cars in the distance. Was I truly in nature?
On page 2, Carson writes, “There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example– where had they gone?… It was a spring without voices…only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.”
It is interesting that the absence of sound inspired the title for Carson’s book, because I think we most commonly associate sounds with life, especially in nature. Walk into any landscape or ecosystem and you’ll hear the voices of countless organisms. You’ll hear the interactions of the elements and the living things within that habitat. Healthy ecosystems are literally booming with sounds and languages and dialogues from the beings that live there. On page 288, she juxtaposes the representation of sound as life: “Sound is also being tested as an agent of direct destruction. Ultrasonic sound will kill all mosquito larvae in a laboratory tank; however it kills other aquatic organisms as well…” Sound as an agent of life and death also perfectly represents the dichotomy between humans and nature. Somehow, somewhere humans are involved with nature and its processes, and take something so simple and live-giving and use it as an agent of harm. Like the sounds from the town interrupted Thoreau’s sounds at Walden Pond, humans are taking sound and making it a weapon, directly turning it against the birds and organisms whose sound represents their healthy, thriving life.
Also, I have no idea if this will work, but here’s a link to my notes which has a photo of the nature trail: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MaKW5cp2UQ2HGxQh_T6b3Jiyqm0bwJPVs5iwxrDe3Mo/edit?usp=sharing
*Still trying to add my picturessssss
Well the link to the satilite view didnt work, but this is it:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/272+Park+St,+Boone,+NC+28607/@36.223897,-81.6909807,766m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x8850fa07d18cff77:0x86bfa041a729634e!8m2!3d36.223897!4d-81.688792
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0GhIdxuoxpNbGtKOXhVYUxEa1hhb21nQnBYaktuZEgwbWQ0
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0GhIdxuoxpNd3JQdzBlbVRiY3JicmVFTEg2VHJEbmhuRnZn
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https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0GhIdxuoxpNd3JQdzBlbVRiY3JicmVFTEg2VHJEbmhuRnZn
The landscape that I chose to observe and listen to was right off of the parkway, secluded, but still very close to the road. More specifically, Yadkin Valley Overlook. It was October 14th, a Sunday afternoon. Directly behind where I am sitting is a huge stone wall and behind that is a road where cars are driving by. These cars are leading to noise pollution in a, what looks to be, rural and secluded place. I can hear the birds but they are drowned out by the sound of the cars passing. This leads me to think of the real reason we have national parks and what this landscape was like before man came into the picture. I heard a lot of silence. When there were not cars passing, there was silence and the occasional sounds of nature. As I sat there listening, I couldn’t help but think what it would have been like to sit there before there were parkways and national parks. Before we had to remind people that it is good to preserve nature and immerse yourself in the woods every now and then. Maybe I was finally really understanding what Thoreau was getting at in his writing after all. In order to fully understand and respect nature, one must fully immerse yourself in it. And that does not mean a trip to the parkway. As I sat there, listening to the sounds of cars fill the empty spaces between bird callings and crickets chirping, it was discouraging. It is so hard in this modern day to escape the world on a daily basis because of modern technology. Would the trees be more dense? Would I see more wildlife than I do now? Would I be resting my back on this large stone wall behind me? One thing that really bothered me was the sound of the cars, which is somewhat ironic seeing as I of course drove a car to this overlook. I just hated the noise pollution that it caused. There’s rarely ever a time where humans are able to escape the sound of a car.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Osborne+Ln,+Reed+Creek,+GA+30643/@34.4468003,-82.9099625,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x88588787fdbb799f:0xd7ef2fd875a5b43e!8m2!3d34.4468003!4d-82.9077738
I traveled to a place I have never been over the long weekend. A group of my closest friends and I drove down to rural Georgia, on the Northeastern coast of Lake Hartwell, a large body of water that the Savannah River travels through. The lake house was at the end of of Osborne Ln, a dirt road off of the main stretch, with spur roads branching off about every 500 yards, each to a different farm or home.
I arrived the night of Wednesday the 10th. The effects of hurricane Michael were strong and I woke up Thursday morning to intense humidity that made it feel like early August in the South. One of my favorite ways to ground myself in a new, unfamiliar place is to run. I parallel this to Thoreau’s walking, an act of self reflection and a way to observe the environment around me. He speaks of the benefits of “morning air”, and this rings true to me.
On this rainy, humid morning in north Georgia, I sat on the dock tying my shoes. I listened to the first chirps from the local birds. Learning later that this lake is habitat to many rare species, including the Red Throated Loon, Cattle Egret, and Wilson’s Phalarope. The sound of the loon was foreign to me. A repetitive “hoo” in threes. This stood out to me among the rhythmic chirp of the crickets. A sound that I later noted remained all day long, only seeming to be present in the mornings and evenings, but I concluded that these times were in fact the only times that I was present to their company. The warmth of the October morning held the melody of cricket babble and bird songs of a summer day.
I headed down the dirt road on foot, passing a large grazing field to my left, and a dense hardwood forest to my right.
Enormous cows and petite calves scattered the rolling field. Their low mumurred moos sounded like disgruntled conversation. I closed my eyes and paused next to the barbwire fence and listened. I focused my attention on the forest, the irregular squawking, high pitched chirps and whistle-like songs of birds were dominant. The leaves rustled and I imagined the chipmunks and squirrels digging through the wet foliage for fallen seeds. As the rain fell, I fell solitary in my humanness, while the natural world felt robust and communal.
Many times I heard what I thought was the rumble of gravel under car tires and looked behind me anticipating a car, only to realize that it was the wind whooshing through the trees. A reminder of my constant ties with the mechanical world.
The environment felt overwhelmingly natural, immensely alive and relatively untouched. The biological world was so immense that I felt like a visitor in their space. The lake itself was nearly empty, due to boating season being well over in the middle of October as well as the hurricane that was devastating the geography to the South of us. The houses I jogged passed were vacant. This brought me back to Carson’s alarming excerpt of a strangely silent morning, where the bird song was hushed. Although I was not inhabiting an industrial area, there were no doubt anthropogenic effects to my current environment, it made me question the true exuberance of an ecosystem without the negative effects of man. A time before the industrial revolution that encouraged the writing of Carson’s work.
Reflecting on this experience, I imagine others or even myself on a day I was less present with my physical surrounding environment, would see this foggy morning run as erie. The act of tuning in to the true music of nature, sitting with myself in a new place, a practice Thoreau would deem noble, exposed me to the collective harmony that goes on whether humans are mindful or not The connectedness with nature, the in fact loud bird conversations, the wind and the rain, made a place inhabited by humans a lively scene.
It is almost 10 PM on October 16, 2018. I am sitting on my back porch off Margo Road on the East side of Boone. It is a surprisingly warm night during what should be the beginning of fall. Immediately I can hear the steady fall of rain, each drop emitting a crisp sound as it falls against the leaves below. Suddenly several cars zoom by along Bamboo Road. The wailing of an ambulance siren fades in, then fades out. Occasionally I can hear water dripping into small puddles that are forming along the veins in the wood. Some drops are noticeably larger than others, as reflected in a slightly louder dull ping. A sharp clanging noise emits from the open window to our living room, where my roommate is cooking dinner. There are lots of cars that pass every few minutes, loud enough to hear the gradual roar of the engine, but still muffled slightly by the fragmented forest that stands between me and the road. The sound of rain is extremely calming. I would not typically sit out here on a chilly, rainy night, but I am not unhappy to be out here in the rain. It’s a beautiful compilation of different pitches, joining together to create a steady melody that could put me to sleep. It is a much appreciated reminder of that which I am not in control of, and that which would go on with or without me here. It doesn’t feel like a scary or bad thought, but rather liberating. Thoreau expressed a similar thought when he said, “We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic figures, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain” (Thoreau 205). A subtle feeling of being part of nature. The short yet rather frequent interruptions of passing cars are not preferable, but I am not too bothered by this disturbance. While it would be nice to be completely isolated from the anthroponic sounds, they are a reminder of the many individual experiences here.
http://apricotsandlemondots.tumblr.com/post/179130911034/some-hurricane-video-i-forgot-to-post-where-it https://assets.tumblr.com/post.js
(Embedding is being a pain right now)
This morning, is another morning routine, aside from my instant motions of clanking coffee cups, boiling water, and josling papers. I observe the first sounds of the ruffled blankets slowly working their way downwards. My bed, almost level with the ground, caused my feet to brace the cool wood floor. As I stand, I stretch my arms upwards as a deep breath of air cycles through my nostrils and drifts outward. One step from the door, I open it with a conscious sense of curiosity. I immediately hear the rush of flowing water at Crab Orchard Creek, it’s steady tempo is sustained, and maintained a single note.
The air flow drifting through the valley follows along, but with a deeper hollow tone. The wind, triggers the forests tree branches to interact brushing their dry leaves, it reminds me of the rustling of a hula skirt. The occasional rain drop pops against the tin roof after channeling through the cusped leaves above. The rain had tapered off and the drops came through on time and gave a stimulating surprise like crashing symbols in an orchestra. Layered in are peeping sounds of crickets with rhythmic paradiddles. The conversion between the many crickets created a psychedelic drone experience. Each creature of the earth sang a beautiful mantra to welcome the sunrise. Of course, Birds, fill the air chatting harmoniously using call and response. The tone varieties of pitch, skat, and rhythm boasts the utility of vocals. A language so beautiful, nobody could argue. Living off of a dead end road has its advantages, but it does not exclude neighbors. A local family hollar shares the end of the road and borders the property. It is a family of proud blue collar workers who seem to be off to work by 7:30-8:00 a.m. I rarely hear more than two cars pass in the mornings. Tires interacting with the yet to be paved gravel road creates a popping, crunching, snapping disruptive noise. I drift back into the sounds of nature as the car drifts over the ridge. All of a sudden, the motor from my fridge sustains a buzzing force of electric in order to keep my perishables fresh. It had to be my least favorite noise, but it is hard not to appreciate the modern convenience of the refrigerator. Distracted, once again, I drift away from my auditory attention to think about root cellars. I retract from my thought and immediately hear the strong force of a jet plane pulling air, propelling hundreds of passengers to who knows where. The forceful sound faded quickly. I wonder, who might they be? and where are they going? Blurp! My water container bubbles randomly. I laugh, for some reason, certain sounds of water humor me. Crumb (the dog) startled from a deep sleep looks concerned, but too lazy to do anything more than look at me with a, “what the hell” kind of gaze. I meditate back into the force of the creek and I begin to hear more varieties of birds passing through. A murder of crows pass through and caw with a sense of alertness. Twenty minutes or so had passes, so I trying and move cautiously as if it were inappropriate for me to make sounds. As my morning routine fades back into the coffee making process, packing up for school, and taking care of crumb (the dog) I feel as if someone fast forwarded a move that had been stuck in slow motion, rushed to meet the end of another day.
I am at the top of the steps that lead to the outside of Katherine Harper Hall from the ceramics lab. It is under a partial covering, I’m here because it is raining right now. The seat is near the trees, the faux-forest that covers our campus. It is late, 10:30, the date is 10/16/2108, the middle-ish of fall. Today is the first day it has felt like fall to me. All around me is noise, me noise and man noise and nature noise. The first defining noise is the ringing in my ears, near constant tinnitus from crap ears and loud music. It starts low as I settle into my listening, raises to a crescendo as I become more aware of my hearing and fades out as my brain normalizes it. Kinda like a very annoying wave crashing. Down the stairs and through the open doors I hear the whir of a pottery wheel. A motor spinning, a wheel turning, the slip slide of wet hands on clay, low chatter to herself as she achieves small victories and failures with the clay. Cars pass by on Rivers Street. Sometimes they are quiet and fast, slipping by almost unnoticed but sometimes they come accompanied by loud mufflers ripping into the night, obnoxious and unexpected but not exactly unwelcome or the cars come with spilling out of open windows. The music is muffled enough to be indistinguishable but loud enough to be enjoyable, like an ice cream sample. In the gaps of the man sounds, fills in the constant drone of nature. There is tempo to the animals making noise, the frogs are low and slow like a kick drum, the crickets are like a brush across the top of a snare, high and constant. The rain is pinging onto the the roof and then dripping off the roof onto the concrete. The wind is shoving the trees up against each other, the branches smack and slap. The leaves shake and hiss, the wind whips through the trees. All the noise fluctuates. It is like the sounds are all slow dancing and allowing each other to take lead in different parts. Sometimes the cars determine the sounds or the wind is loudest of the animals get their say or the sounds from the studio melt up to me or the internal creaking and groaning of my body is most prominent.
I am struck by the predicted patterns of sound by man-made design. Rivers of noise follow the streets as we design them, the muffle noise that seeps in and out of our infrastructure and constructed place. The road is there and so the cars fill it with their sound and movement. If there was no road here, would we stay in and know our neighbors better? If there was no road here it would be quieter but would it? Or would the call of animals fill in that space? I am reminded of Thoreau’s Sounds chapter, especially when he talks about the train. “The whistle of the locomotive penetrates my woods summer and winter, sounding like the scream of a hawk sailing over some farmer’s yard, informing me that many restless city merchants are arriving within the circle of the town, or adventurous country traders from the other side. As they come under one horizon, they shout their warning to get off the track to the other, heard sometimes through the circles of two towns. Here come your groceries, country; your rations, countrymen! Nor is there any man so independent on his farm that he can say them nay. And here’s your pay for them! screams the countryman’s whistle; timber like long battering-rams going twenty miles an hour against the city’s walls, and chairs enough to seat all the weary and heavy-laden that dwell within them. With such huge and lumbering civility the country hands a chair to the city. All the Indian huckleberry hills are stripped, all the cranberry meadows are raked into the city. Up comes the cotton, down goes the woven cloth; up comes the silk, down goes the woollen; up come the books, but down goes the wit that writes them.”
In our building in of the world have we destroyed our relationship with nature? Are we more surprised by the call of a hawk or the honk of a horn? Have we silenced our songbirds and filled in their spaces with trains?
Sound is a sense that is unique to every individual. We might hear the same thing but interpret in a number of different ways. The area I chose to become one with was behind my apartment, under a shady oak tree, next to a running stream. I had never sat down in this area before, and shortly after doing so realized how peaceful it can be to get away from normal life for a while. The first thing that I noticed was the bubbling sound of water rolling down the stream. Singling that sound out is very peaceful and calming. If all I was hearing was that stream I could have sat there all day. The distanced honk and loud mufflers abruptly interrupted the sound of that beautiful creek. Being located by Wal-Mart, I cannot escape the civilization sounds that come with living in town. While the annoying sounds of urbanization were prominent, I kept hearing little chirps amidst the cars. The oak tree I was sitting under was the home to a family of birds. I was unable to make out what kind they were, but they were chirping away in what seemed to be a happy fashion. It honestly made me very curious as to what they were saying and their means of communication. Watching other life forms work and interact was very humbling and peaceful. Thoreau spoke of nature a lot in his book and I quote him “…amidst the pines and the hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness,…”(Thoreau, 105). While I could not obtain that stillness he speaks of, I found myself appreciating his words while I sat in my backyard.
The crisp evening breeze carried hints of the arrival of autumn, which had been lingering in the air. On October 11th 2018 I spent time on the Boone Greenway near the Watauga Medical Center. With nothing but a water bottle in my hand, and a cell phone (in case of an emergency) the wind running over my arms and legs left me feeling exposed and vulnerable to natural forces.
As I walked through the path… I longed to begin walking onto the grass. Even the pavement felt too harsh on my knees and I craved something softer and more “real”. I began to contemplate the romantic aspects of Thoreau’s departure from human- dense areas and infrastructure to engaging more with the natural community. I wondered what it must feel like to have no clock telling you when to get up, get dressed, attend meetings, go to classes, etc. I wondered if without that kind of external pressure I would even be able to be “productive” as a person.
A large gust of wind startled me as I was deep in my thoughts, causing me to drop my water bottle.
The loud *clank* made me imagine the internal workings of a clock with the metal gears grinding to depict the ever escaping hours, minutes, and seconds.
Without urgency, a deadline, or a consequence… can one be productive? As I reached down and whipped my head up again, I immediately felt a dizzying spell as I often get with my low blood pressure. I crouched on the ground to regain my balance, and scoffed at myself. What is productivity if the whole is not looked after? How can one judge how “impactful” a gust of wind is upon an ecosystem… and if a specific goal which could be met isn’t quantifiable or discernable does it mean it really has no purpose upon the greater scheme?
There was no clock ticking to tell me how long I was walking though the winding cement path. Time became the intervals between the afternoon birds chirping, or between dog barks, or the gentle echoes of mirthful children giggling and being coddled by loved ones. Although Thoreau did not go into nature to learn about himself, I feel as though I had somewhat understood a bit about why experience is the best teacher.
One last gush of wind, sending a chill down my spine, sent me walking back to my home. Tingling from the sensitivity to the cold and seeking rest.
On October 13th I spent about an hour seated in the woods in Pittsboro, North Carolina. I spent the weekend on a seventy five acre farmstead managed by the Shakori Hills Community Arts Center for the Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance. The rolling hills where the stages, workshops, and gathering spaces are surrounded by a dense band of forested land where attendees are encouraged to camp for the duration of the festival. On Saturday afternoon, I walked away from our campsite into the woods for about 10 minutes and sat down on what I believe was a recently fallen poplar. When I first sat down, everything seemed very quiet. However, as I adjusted to this new place in the woods away from the movement and music of the festival, I was soon overwhelmed by the cacophony of life around me. The first sound that scurried through the silence was a grey squirrel bounding through the leaves before scaling a large oak tree. The oak tree greeted the squirrel with the rustling of early fall leaves. Acorns from the branch the squirrel was now perched on flung themselves towards the earth, announcing their arrival to the forest floor with a twack dulled by the light layer of leaves that had already fallen victim to the changing seasons. This biophony was joined by the breeze moving through the tops of the trees that surrounded me. As I sat and listened for the muted pitter patter of dropping acorns I heard footsteps crunch through the leaves. It took a moment for me to see the woman they belonged to, as she walked by me she offered a cheerful “Happy Shakori” and a wave. The collection of bangles on her wrist jingled through what once again felt like silence. I listened to the crunching under her feet and the light clanking of her bracelets until they faded into the background. I had not realized there was a background until now. The music must have started while I was listening to crunching leaves and shiny jewelry. The sound was too faint to be able to identify the song or even artist but I could hear the humming of a standup bass and a higher pitched string instrument, perhaps a fiddle or mandolin. The anthrophony created by the musicians was amplified as several more people walked by me, following the music. A group of three preteens made the most jarring contribution to this anthrophony as they half walked half chased each other out of the woods. Their high pitched laughter filled the air long after they had faded from view. I was now surrounded by a diverse cacophony of pleasant sounds, the bluegrass strummed along and was joined by the wind that rustled the leaves and laughter that reverberated off the trees around me. I sat for a while taking in the sounds and trying to listen for some unpleasant ones as well. Fortunately, I was too far from a road to hear the humming of any automobiles and deep enough in the woods to be sheltered from the food trucks with their whirring generators. After about fifteen minutes of taking in this mix of natural and manufactured sound, the first unpleasant noise ripped through the symphony. A shrill and angry car alarm drowned out the pitter patter of the acorns for what seemed like an eternity. I was a good distance from any parking lot and the sound wasn’t really very loud at all, but when juxtaposed with the quiet music of the woods it felt almost assaultive. I was relieved when it finally ended and the music remerged. So relieved that I decided this was a good time to go and get a better listen.
In reflecting on the time spent in the woods for this assignment, I have come to agree with Krause and Thoreau that nature is a wonderful composer. The range of sounds present in these woods created a unique song, unlike the song produced by other spaces. I feel that ecosystems are akin to musical artists, each produces a different song, some more similar than others. For example, the song produced by the woods in Pittsboro with its acorn thwacks and grey squirrel scurrying was reminiscent of the song produced by the woods behind my childhood home in Greensboro. Because of similar flora and fauna, the two places shared a similar tune. However, the songs produced by the two artists were still unique. I agree with Carson that to silence the natural music through environmental destruction is detrimental to our well being as a species, and that we must take active steps to protect these songs.