1: Monday, April 1, 2013, 10:19 pm, interstate (headed south) to Long Island
2: Identify and list the sounds farthest away from you.
I’m having one of the weirdest sound experiences of my life, sitting alongside my friend as we roadtrip back to school from Syracuse in his dad’s old car. It’s a 1990 Honda Civic, and something about the way it’s built and how loudly yet evenly the engine runs makes it rather soundproof. I can hear cars flanking us on either side at nearly 80 mph, but they sound very far away and unreal.
3: Identify and list the sounds at a medium range from you.
The car’s original tape deck has been replaced very haphazardly with an equally outmoded CD player that barely fits inside the dashboard. Additionally, all the sound is coming not from all sides, like in modern cars, but exclusively from speakers at the back. This is surprisingly unsettling when you’re grown accustomed to surround sound. Adding to the odd aural effect of this distance is the fact that, at some moments, the CD player seems unable to keep up with the speed at which I burned the songs to play. Few sounds are as subliminally upsetting as that of a song you know and love slowed down and muddled so slightly that you can’t quite tell if anything’s really wrong.
4: Identify and list the sounds closest to you (– you can include internal sounds if noticed or relevant).
The weirdest thing of all occurs when Steve and I sporadically speak to each other, trying to keep each other awake and alert. There seems to be some sort of sonic deadzone in the mere 18 inches of space between us, which perhaps also accounts for the deadening of the music from the back speakers. For the entire five hours, we have to nearly shout to one another. No matter what, the sound seems unable to go very far, like trying to throw a feather. The effect is that of abruptly losing fifty percent of your hearing, and it’s absolutely, maddeningly surreal.
5: Describe the general sound level and amount of sound activity.
The sounds are being emitted at a high level, but the aural experience of these sounds is very diminished and foggy.
6: Assign a one-word description to the “sound environment”.
“Distorted”
7: Select and list 3 sounds that are essential to the sound environment. Note: you need to try and figure out what sounds make up this environment and which of those sounds need to be there for the feeling of the environment to stay intact.
The distant mishmash of sounds that vaguely resemble my favorite songs is very important to this dopey sound environment, as are the sounds of Steve and me impotently hollering to one another. Car sounds seem equally important, in a contextualizing sense.