Blog #2: What I Hear

For my sound walk I decided to take a venture down the path I take every day: my commute to work.  I wanted to discover the sounds that I miss while listening to music, the news, or while I'm texting or reading.  I began my walk obviously by leaving my apartment.  As I open the door it makes a decrepit moan, and a confident thud as I shut it.  As I walk down the stairs I hear the repetitive rhythm of my boots that sound almost like a beat.  I arrive in the lobby and hear the hollow sound of my shoes brushing against each other in the echoing hallway.  As the heavy front door slams behind me, the city hits my hears.  The engine of a car revs as it approaches the green light.  I walk down my front steps and begin to hear the conversations of strangers fade in and out of the foreground as I pass by.  As cars whirl by I almost miss the sound of birds chirping in the trees, but then I catch it and I feel that Spring has finally arrived.  The soundtrack of my two and a half block walk to the subway remains fairly consistent; cars pass, voices fade in and out, and then I begin to hear the base bumping in the distance.  I realize it's coming from a car stopped at a light down the block, and as I approach it the music becomes more and more clear.  It's a song I've never heard before, but as the car then starts to drive away the music is paired along with the engine humming, and it overpowers the music as it drives away.  When I reach the subway entrance I hear a snippet of conversation coming from a man in a suit, saying: "it's clear cut fraud and people don't get away with fraud."  I think about the potential contexts of his conversation and the astounding fact that each one of us has our own stories, experiences and lives that intersect maybe once in a lifetime and never cross paths again. As I walk down the steps, I hear the distant "ding-ding" sound of the subway doors closing a floor below me.  I hear the high-pitched beeping of metro-cards being swiped through the turnstile.  I hear the wheels squeaking to a halt as the train slows down in front of me.  "Stand clear of the closing doors please." I hear the same sound I heard 3 minutes earlier, that I've heard thousands of times but never paid any mind.  Inside the car is practically empty.  There would be silence if it wasn't for the extremely loud and repetitive thudding of the train moving across the tracks.  This arrangement of sounds occurs over and over again, until the 6th time when I exit the train.  The world sounds a lot heavier from the ears of a Grand Central listener, and I discover this the moment I step out.  There's an initial humming of the vent above me as I exit the train car, and the bustling of people stepping through as I pass them.  As I leave Grand Central I take a walk around the block.  I hear the sound of people's feet shuffling by me; the hum of a rolling backpack gains volume as it approaches and passes me, fading into the distance as the man walks away.  I hear the discordant, gnawing sound of a saw across the street where I see construction workers.  The cries of a small child across the street ring out as well.  A car drives over a loose manhole cover and I hear a hard clunking sound as the wheels ride over it.   The hustle and bustle of midtown Manhattan is much more pronounced than 97th Street.  On my way home, the same noises hit me.  Metro-card swipes, "ding-ding," "stand clear of the closing doors please," and then they swish closed a final time.  On my walk home I can't hear anything but a combination of car engines and the wind whirling around me.  The sky is turning gray.  When I approach my door I hear the humming sound of the PlayStation from inside the apartment, letting me know that someone is home.