I did a soundwalk around upper lake around 10PM and the most prominent sounds that I heard were cicadas mixed in with the occasional acceleration or deceleration of a car going down the hill in the distance or a bird calling. I could hear my own footsteps on the gravel path and when I would try to walk slower, so that I might make less noise, I found that my ears tuned in more to that and it was actually quite louder than what I’d originally thought. As I approached the docks near the lake, I could hear people playing music before actually passing and, as said in class the other day, my ears immediately tuned into that sound and I could hear less of the cicadas in the background. There was a moment on my walk that I could hear the splash of a fish in the lake and I thought it was pretty cool how much you could hear when you really focused on actually listening. It was quite dark out around the lake and so I used the flashlight on my phone to help me see. I experimented with turning the light on and off and walking in complete darkness. I found that when I didn’t have the light on the sounds were amplified and it sounded as if the sounds were louder than they were before, which was really interesting to me because one wouldn’t think that sight has an impact on how you hear sounds, but it really did. I really enjoyed the soundwalk and am making it a point to do one at least once a week. I think it’d be interesting to see how sounds are in different environments as well as at different times of the day.
MHC fall 2017
