My first and foremost thoughts about my soundwalk was simply the fact that downtown Montreal is one of the most interesting places I’ve ever been to...aside the fact that people are everywhere--and I mean everywhere.
I walk downtown every single day, regardless of my class schedule. As I live at the corner of St. Mathieu and St. Catherine, I am wedged in the “hub” of the fast lane of the student life in a metropolitan city.
Titling the project “Arcade” was simple once I finally decided which sounds I wanted to include in my project. It was prorbably most apparent due to the fact that I walk past the arcade every day and get a kick out of how many old men are playing the video games. It’s full of pings, dings, and stereotypical sounds you would expect to hear at a Chuckie Cheese’s. The sound didn’t really catch my attention until I walked past it with headphones and edirol on. It was nostalgic and reminded me of my childhood, when I used to beg my parents for quarters (we didn’t have “loonies” or “toonies”). I decided to focus my entire narrative around the ambient noise of standing at the car meter in front of the arcade. You can hear the traffic on St. Catherine and the noises from the arcade intertwined. It was difficult as people often walk by chatting, people in the arcade yelling. It took patience and a number of recordings to find one that was feasible to use for this particular project.
From that point on, I decided that I wanted to construct a project that sounded like a “trip” to an arcade. As Hildegard Westerkamp mentions in her article, Soundwalking (The closer we observe our environmental formations and conditions, the more acoustic possibilities we may discover in them), you truly do find the right place to focus on your sounds. While I had some errands to do, and an assignment for another class due roughly at the same time, I decided to kill two projects with one metro ticket, and hopped on the Green Line at Guy-Concordia en route to Berri-UQAM.
Subway sounds are so harsh, loud, and unforgiving. My levels had to be turned down significantly lower than the other sounds I recorded. However, upon my first recording, my levels were at maximum. When I listened to my recording on the way to the Berri UQAM station, I realised that when I returned back to Guy-Concordia, I needed to lower the levels. When listening to the raw sound, the track could almost be mistaken for a race track.
Once I got to Berri-UQAM, I completed my Intermedia assignment at a Photobooth. The coins made a great sound, so I decided to record them (after dropping many, as you can hear). I looked crazy walking around with a microphone and doing ridiculous things in the photobooth, but it was fun and the sound was essentially very clear and at the right level. I decided to pop up “above ground” to snag some more recordings during my sound walk...which became a ride.
In the tunnel going up the stairs, several students, businessmen/women, and other people were rushing to catch the next metro, or possibly a bus to somewhere outside of or within Montreal. Within the crowds of people, women’s dress shoes and heels stuck out the most in the bustle. I decided to “stalk” a woman because her heels made a really loud clack (perfect for footsteps-which I needed!). She smiled and laughed a bit at first, but was indefinitely creeped out. Oops!
I walked back down to the metro back towards Honour-Beaugrande. On the way back down, I heard a man playing the saxophone. I was frustrated because there was a great deal of static and background noise and I wanted the specific sound of the man’s music. Within the same recording, I recorded the music with the external microphone, and without the external microphone. Both sounded terrible when I played them back!
At the McGill station, I decided to get off and walk home. I passed a water fountain and had the same issue as recording the saxophone. Regardless, the water fountain wasn’t interesting and was dull!
Passing a dozen phone booths, I decided to step in and call my own cell phone. I wasn’t really sure what I was going for, and I definitely staged this sound (re: e-mail to prof giuliana). I didn’t even plan to use the sound! But I did get stuck inside the phone booth, which was pretty funny! Luckily, a nice woman helped me escape. Thank God she didn’t think I was homeless!
A group of kids in front of McGill’s campus were smoking (cigarettes...joint?) and taking a stick back and forth against the metal gates. They seemed friendly enough, so I asked them if they minded repeating the movement while I recorded it. It was great and I loved how crisp it sounded. It reminded me of when I was a little boy walking home from school and I’d pick up sticks or branches and run them along the fence in my old neighborhood.
The ambient sounds are generally a product of the noisy streets in downtown Montreal area. The traffic ambient sound clips are from different streets (i.e. Crescent, Rene Levesque, St. Catherine.)
The Firetruck and Ambulance noises interested me because, as I mentioned during the first Sound Class, EVERYONE turns their head for the sound of a siren. We wonder where it’s coming from, what it’s rushing to. I held out my edirol as the trucks passed by!
To tie everything together, when I got home, I realised how squeaky and loud my door is. Every time I am on the phone with my mom, or a relative, they ask if it’s a baby, intrigued by the squeak!
My sound walk was more of a sound...night. I enjoyed walking around and paying closer attention to the surroundings of where I live, versus isolating myself within my earphones and iPod as I walk. In reading "The Soundscape on Radio" by Hildegard Westerkamp, she explains how that she tries to convey a story or image that she is seeing, live from her soundwalk. I found this to be great advice in conveying the message of my own soundwalk. However, I compared the sounds to that if they were to be on the radio. What would people see? Would they recognize the noises and be able to visualize my ideas? All I can say is that I am eager to share my own sounds with the class and to receive feedback from my peers!
Until next time!
Philly
