I’ve always been told to pay attention to the little things in life and to appreciate the things that you tend to overlook, which is why I made my podcast of the ten daily sounds that give me tranquility and happiness. I started my podcast in the way I like to start my mornings, with the sound of someone running on the treadmill, a shower, and a Keurig machine making coffee. The next sound, of a door opening, is supposed to resemble a person holding open the door for the next. The sound of my little brother’s voice always brings me happiness and is definitely a sound that I enjoy hearing every day. The following four sounds are sounds I experience at the end of the day. Starting with that feeling of relief, my sixth sound is of a pen crossing of homework from my planner. My next three sounds are of popcorn popping, brushing my teeth, and the theme song to Grey’s Anatomy. All three of these sounds are at the end of my day, when it is winding down and I can finally relax. At last, my final sound, which I fall asleep to every night, is the sound of our fan.

In “Making Noise” by Hillel Schwartz, he references how as a society, we believe that silence is what we want, but in reality once it all goes silent, we go crazy. Looking back on our class conversation about how machinery is manufactured to have sound, I noticed how quiet life would be if the objects I recorded functioned in complete silence. I realized that even though all day I cannot wait to go to sleep and get some peace and quiet, yet I always go to sleep with the fan on for the “white noise” effect because like Schwartz said, many of us think we want silence but truly cannot be comfortable without some type of noise.

When talking about the passive ear, Bull and Back state, “we increasingly fail to listen to the natural sounds of the world and that this inattention could have dire consequences.” I found it interesting, that when looking back at my list of sounds, none of them are natural. However, trying to think of, and more importantly, obtain natural sounds for my podcast seemed to pose even more of a challenge. It was very surprising to realize how heavily my daily life and the sounds that I hear and acknowledge revolve around manmade items.

In English’s, “The Sounds Around Us” he explains that the non-cognitive microphone lacks the ability to zone into a particular sound or filter out undesirable sounds. This became apparent when I was recording the sound of my fan, which turned out to be extremely difficult to capture, even when using a high tech recording device. Along with the sound of my fan, almost all the sounds turned out to be more challenging to record than I anticipated.

While making this podcast my eyes were opened to so much about recording devices and the way in which I go through the day hearing different sounds. I recognized how dependent and focused I am on material objects as well as how difficult these sounds can be to capture.

Bibliography:

Bull, Michael, and Les Back. Introduction: Into Sound. n.d.

Schwartz, Hillel. Making Noise. n.d.

English, Lawrence. “The sounds around us: an introduction to field recording.” , n.d.