Hofstra Drama 20 – Sound for the Theatre

Location: Walking upstairs from my basement to the first floor

Sounds In Clip: Footsteps; A light switch being turned from ON to OFF;  Doors being manually closed; The steps creaking; A doorknob being turned; Noises coming from the television

Location: My house

Sounds heard: floorboards creaking, door opening, footsteps

Location: My house

Sounds heard: doorknob turning/key unlocking door, door creaking open, door closing and locking, footsteps upstairs, chair moving

Location: Outside of Vander Poel hall into the lobby, 2/21/18 around 11:20am

Sounds heard: My sneakers on the damp concrete (my favorite sound here, it was interesting), wind, the card-swipe machine beeping, the front door opening, the turnstile creaking

1. 1/29/2014, 1:08 AM, Home on Front St.

2. Identify the sounds farthest from you: Four housemates upstairs, their muffled voices above my ceiling. They laugh and scream with excitement, not a care in the world. I hear very faint music as well, so faint, in fact, I’m not quite sure what it is. The water in the sink upstairs goes on occasionally and reminds me our water pressure is harsh when the facet is turned up high and tonight, it seems to roar like thunder.

3. Identify the sounds at medium range: As the housemates joke around and enjoy themselves, I hear the sounds of a loud, squishy mattress, on a rickety, old hardwood floor. The floor creaks beneath them every time they jump off the bed and walk down the hall to another room, and I can hear it ALL from my room down below.

4. Identify the sounds closest to you: The vaguely rhythmic clicking of the radiators in my room as the heat attempts to warm this frigid night. Someone is in the bathroom outside my room. The water from the faucet is much softer and I hear the opening and closing of the medicine cabinet.

5. General sound level and activity: It feels rather chaotic in the house tonight. It seems I’m the only person with homework. The feeling seems to intensify with every creaky footstep, every rustle in the bed above my head, every muffled laugh. Even the heater in my room seems to tease me by assuring me I’ll get no silence tonight. While most of the sounds are muffled through the ceiling and the walls, they are all too familiar and are indicative of an active, loud house of college students. The sound of every footstep on the old hardwood is like nails on a chalkboard. The worst.

6. One word to describe the sound environment: Distracting.

7. 3 essentials sounds to the sound environment: The creaking hardwood above me, the constant clicking of the radiator in my room, the near constant rustling, tossing in the bed in the room above me.

A creaking staircase of a house in Massachusetts

2..16.2012 – recorded at 8pm

“Wooden Staircase”

Georgia Andre’