Exercise 3 – Everyday Sounds

Indoors – Bedroom
September 18th
09:12

I did this exercise shortly after waking up, so it was kind of hazy and dreamy to be honest. It did add to the surrealism aspect in that regard, trying to recognize sounds while simultaneously trying to stay awake. I chose my room because with 5 people (including me) living in my house, there's usually a great chance that a television is on, or someone is cooking in the kitchen, or making noise that would reduce the effectiveness of this experiment. My room is probably the quietest section of the house save for the basement.

The initial sounds I heard were the more obvious ones – my grandmas talking in the hallway, various house creaking sounds generated by their walking, the muffled television coming from one of the other rooms. As I listened closer, and started to filter out the obvious noises, I could begin to hear some of the more distant noises coming from within my house. The ventilation system started to make an humming noise as it turned on, someone downstairs flushed the toilet, and the sounds of the tap turning on and off along with a door opening and shutting followed. In the next few minutes, I focused on the room itself, which didn't make much of a noise since no electronics were turned on. However, there was a fly in my room that was banging against the window over and over again for whatever reason. It would do so in approximately 5 second intervals until after a few minutes it gave up. I was glad that it didn't come towards me as that would've been quite irritating.

For the last few minutes of this experiment, I focused on sounds from outside. The neighbourhood that I live in is quite quiet, and all I could hear was the usual – birds, cars, garages opening, airplanes overhead, alarm chimes, and one instance of the Go Train horn sounding from afar. What I found most interesting is that at no time during the 10 minutes, did I hear anybody walking or talking from outside my house, only methods of transportation passing through. It goes to prove exactly how much we rely on motorized vehicles and the lack of time spent traveling by foot.


Outdoors – Waiting For Bus
September 19th
01:32

I did this exercise just outside my house, in the section between the storm door and the main door, as I didn't want to sit outside, perhaps drawing odd looks, in the middle in the night. I didn't pick up as many sounds as I did in the morning, but the sounds I did pick up were much more intense and much louder. This is probably because the origin of some noises are machine based and thus quite obnoxious, as well as the general proximity of the sounds. It was a slightly windy night, so the wind was just loud enough to distract me from picking up on any animals passing by. The wind also make my storm door bang every now and then, which was a slight annoyance. The loudest instances during the 10 minutes were when cars passed by, which happened four times in total. The first two cars that passed by were small cars I believe, as they passed by relatively quietly compared to the next one, whose muffler drowned out everything else in the surroundings. The last car, I believe, was a small car but probably driven by a teenager, as the stereo was blaring out loudly and the bass was strong enough that I could actually feel it within my body. It was some random hip hop track that I cannot recall the name of right now.


Reflection

Through this exercise, I didn't really notice any extra sounds that I missed before, as I am usually pretty aware to my surroundings and can pick up on the odd sounds that other people miss, mainly low pitched sounds such as the the TV buzzing, or the vibration of a phone in a loud environment. However, I did realize that there was a huge difference in being able to tell the proximity of sounds while inside compared to being outside. Perhaps I am more adjusted to being inside my house, but while inside my house I could define where and how far away the sounds were when I heard them. The prominence and quality while inside my house was defined by its distance from me, and the barriers that it had to get through to reach me. While being outside however, there was a lack of barriers and restrictions, and all the sounds blended together to a much greater surrounding effect. I had trouble telling exactly how far some of the sounds were, and even which direction they came from at some points. I'd imagine that it would be absolutely hectic if I were to do this experiment again in a crowded area, and not in a quiet neighbourhood in the middle of the night. This has been an enlightening experiment and has given me a greater perspective on how exactly sound works and its relation to the human space and recognition of sound as a whole.