Sound Walk

The overarching "theme" of our walk, would definitely be changes in reverberation. The amount of sounds I heard and the amount of detail with which I heard them in all depended on the reverberatory  qualities of the spaces we walked through. Right out of the gate, from the classroom to the fourth floor hallway, I was shocked at how different things began to sound.  Even more so when we entered the stairwell, when the footsteps almost sounded like raindrops.  

When we got outside, there was simultaneously more and less happening, sonically. There seemed to be more sounds happening, but they seemed to be "smaller" in some way.  If everything I was hearing was coming from speakers, the sounds from outside might have been from a small set of computer speakers, or something of that caliber, while the sounds from the hallway and stairwell might have been from a medium sized guitar amplifier. After a little while of walking outside, though, I began to get overwhelmed. It almost seemed like there was no escaping sounds. They weren't too loud (other than the construction happening) but it seemed that an infinite number of sounds sounds were floating my way from all directions. Chirps, bits of conversations, squirrel jitters, cars driving by, AC units humming, keys jingling, feet stepping. Paying so much attention illuminated (to use visual terminology) how MANY things are happening and making sound that I hardly ever notice. 

Approaching Littlefield, I was anticipating escaping the bombardment that was happening outside, but once we entered, it got even worse.  Things came from all directions, similar to outside, but everything was sharp and piercing and pretty abrasive. Things seemed to come from much closer (which they were) and to use the similar illustration, it was like I had a pair of earbuds turned up way too loud shoved inside my head.  Sounds were much higher pitched.

When back outside, there was some relief, but I was still kind of bombarded. Once we reached the parking garage, the sounds softened a little bit, but acquired a brand new reverberatory qualities. I noticed that damn cricket more than anything though.  And the concrete walls did not help at all.

Once inside again, I felt similar to the way I did in Littlefield, but with less sounds, the hallway was a nice relief from the bombardment of the last 10 minutes.  The walls were even tighter, and if the Littlefield sounds were happening in that hallway, I might've exploded. 

Moving back into the CMB was familiar, and in the same way that home smells a certain way, and your favorite tshirt feels a certain way, it seemed like the CMB sounded a certain way.

One thing I noticed throughout the whole experience was, underneath everything, there was a hum.  And it changed pitch with each setting.  Outside it was a very low hum or wind, engines, and machines, and in Littlefield it was almost a squeak. Especially after spending a weekend in the Hill Country, where none of that hum even existed, I realized that city sounds are kind of inescapable. I didn't realize how much sound is constantly happening around us. It's kind of eerie.