Mind the Gaps (Silences)
 |
| Times Square from the 1940s—before the blackout |
My father was annoyed by classical music because he couldn't understand why it got suddenly soft or loud. Part of the reason was that people mostly listened to music in cars against the din of traffic and the softer parts got drowned out. Birds tend to find and adapt to the territory where they can be heard. (You can still hear birds even in the loudest traffic because they found that notch). Classical music was closer to nature because it filled in the gaps in the biophony.
The sound of a city hasn't changed that much since traffic noise started, mostly the sound of tires on pavement and engine noises. In long time scales, the 1920s were about ten minutes ago, so we can't expect marked differences. But there were changes between, say, 1870 and 1920, so it can be assumed that at some point enough technological change would have occurred to change a city's soundprint.
Right now, it sounds like a typical Monday evening in terms of the sound of traffic outside my window. As I live on a busy thoroughfare, I have always known the time of day by the changes in the sound of traffic without looking at a clock; It's like the sound of birds in June chirping at 3 a.m. I know the elevator is stuck or broken when I don't hear it. This is when we are like the ancient cultures that relied more on sound.
Composers understand the power of organized sound. It was redefined once it had to compete with machine noise, and composers adapted to the biophony by making the music noisier, but it still had softer parts. We use dynamics precisely because we want the listener to take note of the changes by inserting gaps to give perception a jolt. In my ambient music, I have frequently incorporated environmental sounds and noises as a kind of "adaptation". The whole point of it is to be able to play it in a car and not even notice it was there until the outside noise floor fell out.
What I keep noticing more than acoustic changes is the "frozen fall", with dried leaves that never fell and are still on the branches, following a freak Halloween snowstorm. I have been noticing climate changes since the mid-90s and had recorded them in my diary. For example, many days in July and August 1997 had the same temperatures as November and December 1998 with highs around 70. Changes in weather are easier to notice than changes in sound as they are part of a larger system and have wider implications on many other systems.
 |
| Halloween Sunrise |
But even if you force yourself to look (e.g. taking photos to show how COVID-19 is changing the landscape), you won't see any differences. This could be a flaw in the human Umwelt: we simply cannot perceive certain things because of the limitations built into both conscious and unconscious perception. Moreover, our current level of fear makes perception even murkier. If you went out and recorded your walk, it would sound unremarkable, unless you picked up bits of people making comments about the day's events.
Never mind the gap because you might not find the gap. It's probably wise to watch for changes in animal behavior because their sensory perception fills in the gaps.
Comments