Describe your setting, time, and any important particulars.
Indoor location: my bedroom with a closed door on the 11th floor. The building is situated very close to a four lane road. The time was 7:45 AM on a working day. I was sitting in the middle of my bed, near a closed set of windows.
What sounds did you notice?
Clock Ticking – constant beat. Every second I heard the hand ticking. It is not as simple as saying that the clock was ticking, because even this sound had variations depending on the direction in which the hand was rotating. While my eyes were closed, I could visually imagine the direction of the movement and its position on the clock based on the sound, for instance if the sound was higher or lower determined whether it was moving upward or downward on the dial.
Faint movement of cars on the road. As each vehicle came closer, its sound increased exponentially, and then decreased in the same manner as the vehicle moved farther. As well, there was a difference in sound, as some sounds were heavier than others, perhaps it depended on the weight of the vehicle.
Household sounds – such as ruffling of plastic bags, clicks in the wooden floors, perhaps when someone walked upstairs. Interestingly, the sources for sounds such as the ‘clicks’ were more unrecognizable, thus I mentally categorized them as “noises”. There were these low hum’s at some points, as if someone were to blow air out of their mouths.
Did you become aware of previously missed sounds?
I did not discover any ‘never heard before’ sounds. I think that all of these sounds I heard were known to me at some point or the other. The interesting bit was that I paid full attention to each of these sounds individually to asses their qualities, whether they were bulky or serene, constant or random, close or far.
Were some sounds more prominent than others? Why do you think so?
I think that the word prominent can mean a number of things, it can mean ‘most present’ or ‘more outstanding’ but in different manners. A sound can be more prominent due to a pattern even if its volume is not very high. The mere beat, and its repetitiveness makes it prominent to a point where your ear senses the next interval at which the sound will strike, and is simply waiting to be satisfied. The clock was therefore the most prominent sound in my indoor space. Coming in second would be the movements of cars travelling, also because of their ongoing movement up and down the road.
What did you notice about the quality of sounds?
Sounds which I mentioned above, such as the clock ticking and the car movements were sharper, and less ambiguous perhaps due to the fact that their source was definite. However sounds which were less constant were generally low, softer, somewhat unidentifiable, vague and faint – possibly due to the distance they may have traveled to reach me.
Reflect on your overall experience and understanding of everyday sounds.
The most interesting part for me was to try and draw out the sounds I could barely hear. It was very tempting to identify their source, how far the sound must be travelling from, etc. I found that the tiniest of sounds make up what we call “silence”. Silence is not a complete void of sound. I believe that I understood this when I realized that snippets of sounds and noises still existed in a place I often felt peaceful in. Knowning this now, I can say that silence is more a resting of the mind, a harmony found in oneself being motionless, rather than everything around you being still.
