The Domestic Soundscape making, listening, thinkingfelicityford@outlook.com
Swans Flying
I can’t recall *exactly* the sound of swans flying overhead; but I do remember their wings made a great sweeping sound & there was a high tone in the noise of their calls & movement. It was an assured sweep of wings; too strong for a flutter and yet not at all choppy or hard. […]
Cow slipping on ice
concentric circles of echoing harmonics with many thin tones built up on each other… The cow that slipped was this one, and I saw it when I was walking in Ditchling this time last year. This is Ethel Mairet’s sign, which hangs in the Ditchling Museum, just around the corner from where she had her […]
Wind in the last oak leaves
A very small sound like a thin rattle at the edge of the wind… shk, shk, shk, shk…
Wood before it catches fire
There is a fizzing excitement in wood when it is about to catch fire. Steam hisses from its cut ends & the surface prickles dryly. There is a beautiful rushing quality to the flames as they lick, river-like, on the wood, coaxing it to burn. The wood makes a sound like nerves or the buzz […]
Ice cracking
extreme hardness: kkkkkk-fsh-RUKSH-CRRRRRR can sound be ‘SHARP’? Snap. Crack. Brittle surfaces colliding & freezing friction Ice cracking: it is like glass being torn.
Pouring a beer
1. Get bottles out of cupboard. They CLINK together; a rolling, glassy resonant bang. 2. The short fzz/shhh as the cap is popped off the bottle. 3. The clunk of the glass being set down… 5. 4. The gentle zzzzzzz of the bubbles as the glass fills & the diminishing space produces a higher pitch.
Mystery birdsong
Buoyantly; rapidly; intensely; alarmingly PAUSE: then repeat You can hear a recording of the mystery birdsong (I have since learned that it was a Great Tit singing) here from when I recorded it last year and posted it on this very blog to find out if anyone knew what it was!
Shattering crockery…
Porcelain surfaces CRASH clink… A violent, percussive, short, staccato BURST. A single, radiating, large soundwave. I remember this sound very well; it was when Joey the cat was investigating the shelves in the kitchen and he knocked over a Toby Jug that had belonged to Mark’s Grandmother. It was in so many tiny little pieces […]
Frost
Walking on frosty pavements; the occasional slip in the rhythm of my steps as I slide. The marble-like qualities of a frozen surface… a hard clacking sound.
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