The following is a written recording of the sounds heard during a ten minute period of silence. I'm sitting at my desk in the family room, just off of my kitchen. I opted that because there would be no actual sound to project this frame of time, nor should there be any visual aide outside of your imagination. It's 6:09 a.m., I'm about to begin.
Tap...tap...tap.....the trickle of water running to my left...a familiar calming flow of water running into the fish tank..it varies in strength...pushing in and out...trickling...plinking....sniff...sniff...zip....the dog in the other room. Hmmmm.....prrrrrr.....the whirrrrr of the refrigerator to my right...the creak and pull of my hand on the edge of the desk..tap...tap...tap...thump....a door on a car...somewhere off in the distance...outside the shifting drone of a car passing through its gears...further off to my right a faint trickle much slower....softer...the other fish tank....tap....tap...tap....another car droning off down the road....people heading off to work....the school just across the road with it's big buses heading out for the morning pick ups. The sounds of the motors.....all groaning to life express their girth by the depth of their growl...a strange tick....or popping...like tape letting go behind me....my own breath passing through my congested nose whistles softly like a sleeping child...another car...this one in a hurry races by on the main road.
That's it...10 minutes of sounds recorded from silence. I had thought that this would be a long and yes, boring process. But as I sat here listening...searching out the sounds and where they were coming from; that time passed by as if only seconds, leaving me feeling as if I've only scratched the surface of the sounds I heard in silence.
I enjoyed reading your response to this exercise. It is fascinating that, when we take the time to really listen, even our quiet moments and environments are swimming in sound. I am interested to see the types of sounds you collect for the next assignment.
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