Posts Tagged ‘water’
February 5th, 2015 | 
Author: Location: bathroom
Sounds Heard: shower running
Location of clip: Kitchen, my house.
Sounds heard: Mom opening up the box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, ruffling the plastic bag, and pouring the cereal into the blender. The blender’s motor can then be heard, along with a cabinet door closing. The faucet is then turned on and off, followed by Mom pouring more cereal into the blender.
Posted in Field Recording | 
Tags: blender, cabinet, cereal, cinnamon toast crunch, faucet, kitchen, ruffling, water | 
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1: Wednesday, March 20, 2013, 11:10 pm, House on Braxton St
2: Identify and list the sounds farthest away from you.
I’m taking a bubble bath in my friend’s newly installed tub as a rare treat, because the tubs on campus seem dirty. I am also doing this with the specific intention of creating a sound journal for what I hear underwater. Once submerged, the only distant sounds that can be heard are of so low a register that they seem more like pure vibrations – the sonorous thud of a shutting door and the dull footsteps of a heel-walker on the hall floor outside the bathroom door.
3: Identify and list the sounds at a medium range from you.
I can hear the hot water rushing out of the faucet, making frothing sounds and splashes as it divides to slap the surface of the water and churn down to the closed drain with its stream. Once I turn off the faucet (with a feeble squeak), I can hear the occasional, singular plink of water into the tub, and even the fluid rustle of water displaced by my shifting limbs.
4: Identify and list the sounds closest to you (– you can include internal sounds if noticed or relevant).
Internal sounds are more audible than they’ve been in any previous sound journals with the water pressure pushing up against my eardrums. I can hear my heart beating with a thud, with the sonic clarity of hearing it through a stethoscope. Occasionally my viscera make squishing noises in hunger – as my friend Greg once described the growlier of these noises, they’re like “a monster submerged in pudding.”
5: Describe the general sound level and amount of sound activity.
The sound level to an external ear would be very low – in fact, most of the sound activity I’m observing would be practically inaudible to anyone as far as the other side of the small bathroom. But beneath the water, the sounds are very full.
6: Assign a one-word description to the “sound environment”.
“Internal”
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 sounds from outside the bathroom give clues to context like dulled honking outside a sealed up car, but they aren’t vital to the vibe of the sonic environment. The sound of the water of varying sizes and speeds (from a downpour to the sporadic droplet) go well with the internal sounds of my body, as there is a fluid, quality to both. After all, the human body is filled with fluid; therefore, being inside a bathtub is aurally like being inside a body. Thus, listening to the fluid in my body while submerged in fluid is like meta-sound-journaling. (Whoa!)
1: Wednesday, February 27, 2013, 3:14 am, Alliance Hall, 7th Floor Bathroom
2: Identify and list the sounds farthest away from you.
Inside the shower, water falls steadily in thin, high-pressure streams onto an assemblage of plastic, toiletry bottles, of which the varying degrees of emptiness create an array of tonalities. The water also drums on the edge of a plastic shower curtain, creating the full, soft sound of rain on wide-leafed flora – the sort of sound one hears on a recording of a lush rainforest, meant to work as a relaxation/sleep aid.
3: Identify and list the sounds at a medium range from you.
A girl sits in a stall on the other side of the bathroom, talking on the phone in a low yet urgent voice. Each syllable, no matter how hushed, ricochets off the smooth, Formica countertops and the hundreds of small tiles, echoing onto the start of the next syllable and garbling her words so that only the vague sounds of pleading and apologizing can be discerned. The conversation has the intimate, shameful tone of a confession to a romantic partner, and she seems to have sought relative privacy in the bathroom at 3:00 am, presumably to not disturb her sleeping roommate. The sound of me showering has made her self-conscious, and she murmurs sheepishly for the better part of my shower.
4: Identify and list the sounds closest to you (– you can include internal sounds if noticed or relevant).
Outside the bathroom, a resident can be heard strumming his guitar inside his single room. However robust the sound may be within the room itself, when emanating through the wood of the bathroom door and the curtain of water, the notes sound eerie and thin. Compounding this effect is the slow, lilting pace at which the player strums as he tries to find his way through the ill-remembered chords.
5: Describe the general sound level and amount of sound activity.
The sound level is somewhat low, in keeping with the time of night and the solitary nature of the various, simultaneous activities, from my ablutions to the girl’s chagrinned confessions to the boy’s meandering guitar practice.
6: Assign a one-word description to the “sound environment”.
“Intimate”
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.
All three levels of sound work well together, however disparate the individual sounds may seem in character. Each is the product of a private activity, carried out alone in the latest hours of the night, and thus creates a sound suiting one such mood. As a result, the tone of each sound fits nicely within the theme of the collective.
Identify the location of the clip – I got a lifeproof case for Christmas for my Iphone. A lifeproof case is completely waterproof and so I decided to do something entirely new and different. This field recording is taken from inside my shower stall with my phone placed on the soap holder.
Identify the sounds heard in the clip – The first sound that you can hear is the background noise of the water hitting the bottom of the shower floor and then the ting of me setting my phone down on the soap holder. You can then proceed to hear me rinse my hair and the surges of water drop and hit the shower floor. As the recording continues you can hear me fill my hands with water and then drop it to the floor. At the end the water is shut off and you can only hear it drip off of my body adn then the shower curtain opened. The final noise is me grabbing my towel and drying off which is a lower “boomy” noise. Overall the sound is very tinny and echoey because I am in the shower stall and the tiles of the walls reflect the high frequency of the sound waves as the water hits the ground.
1) 4/14/11-10:45 p.m.-Women’s bathroom on 9th floor of Alliance Hall
2) Boy yelling in the hallway and faint music coming from a room just outside the bathroom were the furthest audible sounds.
3) Water flowing in the shower, the door opening and closing, and a girl humming next to me would qualify as medium range sounds.
4) Water rushing from the sink, my toothbrush bristles scraping against my teeth, and spitting would be considered sounds closest to me.
5) The sound level was moderate. The sound activity was also moderate because there aren’t typically many people using the bathroom at once that make lots of different sounds.
6) Aqueous
7) Water from the shower, bathroom door opening and closing, and sounds from brushing my teeth.
1- 2/24/11 3:13 PM The front Patio of my cottage at Capt. Don’s Habitat, Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles
2- Sound of the sea rolling into shore, various bird noises, a plane overhead
3- Conversation between two people in the cottage, clicking of the ceiling fan in the cottage
4- The sound of light rain hitting the metal roof and the ground around me
5- Medium sound level, but the rain, while light, is still very steady
6- Tropical
7- Rain noise, the water on the coral rocks, and the bird noises