chiming of grandfather clock in stairwell
until I fall asleep, I hear pop music from a Thete party across the quad. I don't know any of it.
I am eating breakfast in the Ratty when music from a commercial catches my attention.
I practice violin: scales, Kreutzer Etude #12, and Mozart 4th Violin Concerto. Also the few fiddle tunes I know.
My cell phone goes off.
While doing homework, I listen to Mozart String Quartets K 168, 168, 160, and 589. The last is a piece my string quartet plans to read when we pick a piece for the semester. The recording is by the Eder Quartet. (Thank you, Naxos!)
Briefly from across the way: "WHO LET THE DOGS OUT" followed by static, possibly from another source (a saw?). Mozart still playing.
At least one of my neighbors is playing electric guitar.
From across the way: hip-hop and an arrhythmic bounced basketball.
No more Mozart.
A cell phone goes off outside.
Acoustic guitar from a neighbor.
More distant pop music. It was probably going on continuously but it only came to my attention periodically.
Phone call from my sister.
Solitary whistler outside.
- Sometime close to, or possibly after, Midnight
I retrieve butter from my refrigerator and hear people singing sea shanties in the bar.
2 comments:
The most striking part of your blog entry for me was the inclusion of an "arrhythmic bounced basketball" in the soundscape you described. I wondered whether the simultaneous hip-hop you heard highlighted the fact that this basketball was not being bounced to a steady beat. In general, how do we interpret certain sounds as meaningful (and in this case, worthy of noting in a blog entry) and others as "just noise"? The chime of the grandfather clock and the cell phone ring are meaningful because they are alerts to either the time or an incoming call, but what about, for example, a knock on the door? I was also surprised by how many times you heard music from anonymous or distant sources such as the guitar music, pop music, and the sea shanties. I would be interested to learn how you felt about this extraneous "noise", were you indifferent, annoyed, intrigued?
Nice work Hope. Like Katharine, I enjoyed your mentioning what some would call "extramusical" sounds in your soundscape. I'm curious--Did you experience the bouncing ball and cell phone as music?
Best,
Ben
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