Blog #2- Sound Blog

          The location I chose for my soundwalk was Central Park during the afternoon. I have always observed the park visually and thought of it in terms of what images I could capture, as opposed to ever considering becoming aurally acquainted with it. This being the case, I thought it was the perfect setting for my soundwalk. The texture of the sound varied from monophonic at moments of quietness where I only heard one sound, to extremely polyphonic when I heard what seemed like a dozen sounds at once.

            Some of the sounds I heard (“instruments” in the “city symphony”) included: birds chirping, people talking, car horns, sirens, bicycle bells, footsteps, and the wind. I think the sounds themselves aren’t particularly specific to the location, as most of what I heard can be heard almost anywhere. What is so specific to the location however, is the ability to hear all of them in the same place in such a short span of time, sometimes all at once.

            I would say that bicycle bells, car horns, footsteps, and the wind would be considered keynotes, as they are mostly background noises. I would consider the sound signals to be the people talking, as the conversations of people walking by were frequently in the foreground of what I heard. While sirens are sort of a background noise, I would consider them to be a soundmark because they sound so often, so definitively, and are almost inescapable.  I would also consider the chirping of the birds to be a soundmark because that sound is just as frequent, defining, and impossible to escape as sirens in the park.

            The only sounds I didn’t already sort of expect to hear were the rare instance of someone randomly yelling in the distance, or the ring of a person’s cellphone. I would say the most meaningful sounds to me were the nature oriented noises, as much of why I frequent Central Park so much is because it is more peaceful and natural than the city it lives in.