Sounding Memory

Call to Prayer

admin — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 18:07:30 +0000

I am praying in a mud-brick mosque in Burkina Faso. It is dark inside, and a mud-brick mosque requires enormous pillars to support it, so really the interior has half space for people and half pillars. You’re very spread out in these mosques, no one bothers to stand shoulder to shoulder. So I am sitting waiting for prayer and the muezzin starts his call. I am staring at the mud wall in front of me, and his voice actually sounds like the ghost of Vincent Price. That’s all I can think. I had never heard someone call like that. It’s beautiful, because it’s unintentionally frightening. I look at the cracked dirt in front of me and think of God as something strange and organic.

Response

One, two, three, four, breath

admin — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 18:07:20 +0000

one, two, three, four, breath
one, two, three, four, breath
counting strokes and alternating breaths during the race. every gasp takes one ear out of the watery world of pure sonic clarity and presents the unintelligible rumble of the cheering crowd – roars in a gymnasium mired by perpetual echo.
one, two, three, four, breath
one, two, three, four, breath

Response

Rain encircling

admin — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 18:07:08 +0000

Walking home from work in light rain, I noticed the sound of raindrops hitting the brim of my hat. Because the brim encircled my head, the drops made sounds from every direction in the lateral plane, just above my ears. The sound was only noticeable in the gaps between the roars of road and air traffic. Wind in the trees provided a background of coloured noise that drifted in its apparent location.

Response

Carillon

admin — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 15:05:09 +0000

In 2001, my first visit to a carillon inspired me to take up the profession of carillonneur. I rushed late to an informational meeting and demonstration at the collegiate gothic stone tower, pushed open the heavy wooden door, squeezed through another narrow creaking door and found myself climbing tightly winding stone stairs as if in a dream, never seeing more than a few steps before me and having no idea what might appear at the next moment. Bells were resounding down the steps as if from another time — a virtuoso shimmer of broken minor chords over an immense bass line of deep tolling, drawing me upward until the keyboard and player finally came into sight, many spiraling flights and empty chambers later.

Response

Timed Crash

admin — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:38:06 +0000

Silence [Asleep]
Shrill acceleration approaching = 4.2s
Rubber scraping against asphalt = 3.3s
1.7 tonnes of steel and glass meeting 4 metre tall timber lamp post = 0.6s
Silence.

Response

Bats and bushbabies

admin — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 13:57:24 +0000

Step outside into the quiet night, cicadas, drums beating about 5 km away-the kind used for an exorcism-there was a wildness to it and the distant call of people responding, bats swooping over my head, the cry of a bushbaby.

Response

1972

admin — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:33:30 +0000

1972
the soldier breaking the glass of the skylight.
the soldier falling on the refrigerator.
the potatoes falling on the long-playing.
the song “Me gustan los Estudiantes, Daniel Viglietti” falling on the floor.
the revolutionary escaping.
the soldier screaming.
the woman screaming.
the boy crying.
the dog barking.
the city howling.
the prison waiting.

Response

Waiting for the bus

admin — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:44:25 +0000

We’d wait in the cold for the bus, which would take us to the mountains to ski. We’d wait in the cold pre-dawn dark. The smell of diesel and the sound of the massive bus on an otherwise empty street meant we would soon be warm again.

Response

Xenia Tornado

admin — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:57:48 +0000

I was in this tornado in 1974: http://www.xeniatornado.com/ It sounded like a train coming through my house. I could hear birds and other creatures screaming, and glass breaking, metal banging around, things smashing etc. In the eye of the storm was almost dead silence. I’ll never forget it. I was 6yrs old.

Response

Chainsaw summer silence

admin — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:06:31 +0000

The sound of the faraway chainsaw breaking that special sort of summer silence, which is actually full of birdsong and tree whisperings, as Dad cut up wood down the back of the property.

Response