I’ve been thinking about soundscapes.

Every now and then, I will record the sounds of a certain environment. In my solo, I used the sounds of waves from a beach I spent time at last summer. The water gives a certain ambiance to the first scene, where I am being washed up on shore by the waves. I find the recording to be quite meditative and soothing. But, I don’t think it’s just the waves. This calmness also comes when I record any sounds and then play the recording out of context. For example, the sounds of a busy city street in a quiet room. The sounds of a scene detached from its surroundings creates for me a funny feeling of calm and presence. Like I am suddenly much more aware.

Hearing the shouts of kids when you are in a playground is typical and unspectacular. But when it is played in a home environment, it somehow brings more life to the sounds. This came up in a conversation I had with Diethild and Julek. How imagination is triggered by leaving an element of a situation unknown or unseen. Just hearing sounds makes you wonder what the scene looked like.

Anyway, last night, I got back home from a day at the beach. After I ate and took a shower, I walked into my room with the lights off. There was some second-hand light shining from the windows across the Hinterhof into my room, lighting up the outlines of my furniture. I watched my neighbor in the building across from me ironing something in her living room. The kitchen lights from another apartment shone onto my floor. The wind was picking up in the courtyard, blowing the new spring leaves and hinting at the coming rain. I felt such perfection in that moment. I saw myself in my window watching my neighbor in her window. I had the feeling I could watch her iron and listen to the wind and sit in the darkness forever.

But of course I didn’t and after some meditative moments, I went to my desk in the dark and thought about the fact that I haven’t posted something on the blog in a while and wondered what I should do. I started listening to a sound recording I had made at the beach earlier in the day and had the idea to draw what I heard. As I listened to other recordings on my phone, I did the same and came up with these 4 drawings:

I wonder if you listen to the recordings, can you guess which is which?

Nightengale:

Bath bubbles:

Kaulsdorferseen:

Courtyard: