Blog #2 - Soundwalk

Crown Heights, Brooklyn Monday, March 12th

6:30am

As I walk through my Brooklyn neighborhood in the early morning the air is cold and sharp, at first all I can hear is the wind blowing past my ears, causing a soft, wave like, roar, almost like holding a seashell to your ear. Soon this sound is overpowered by the steady gentle ambiance of car engines purring, a low pitched rumble that is soft and warm. This is the sound of alternate side parking, my neighbors sitting inside their warm cars for hours as they wait for the street sweeper or a cop to come by. The sound of the engines fill my right ear as I walk up New York Ave, growing louder at each red stop light as cars in the street congregate, waiting to speed down the block to the next light at the first sign of green. When these cars move the sound of their engines briefly crescendos, pitch rising like a question.

To my left are rows of brownstones, quiet and lifeless in this still dark hour but somewhere hidden I can hear the chattering of squirrels. Their language is abrupt and sharp and strangely mechanical, like the clacking of swiftly spinning gears. Above all this are the birds, a sound unique to the morning. The bird songs are varied and come from all angles, though sometimes they go silent for long stretches of time. Some sing a shrill staccato song that pierces through the wind and the rumble of cars; others call out a low breathy coo that blends into the sounds around it, braiding all of the soft and subtle morning keynotes together. Somewhere high above, higher than the tree branches and roof ledges that these other birds perch upon, a lone seagull lets out out a single harsh and nasally call. The gull sounds lonely, lost, desperate.

The loud aggressive growl of an airplane overhead seems to come out of nowhere, accompanied by a soft but high pitched whistle. It’s gone as quickly as it appeared. For a while after this the world seems to quiet down, I turn onto a street with fewer idling cars and once again the only sounds I hear are the wind in my ears, my own breathing, and the quite rhythmic pounding of my own footsteps. Then in the distance the rattling thunder of the LIRR approaching on above ground tracks breaks the stillness. The old timey roller coaster sound makes my stomach feel nervous and excited. The volume builds and builds until it pulls into the station a few blocks north of me, once its passengers have boarded the train resumes its journey but this time the sound is slower, softer, not yet at full acceleration.  

As I approach the subway station the world seems to have woken up. The cars become louder and more consistently in motion and the sound of birds chirping is replaced with the hum of many human conversations. These conversations are not the boisterous pronouncements of afternoon crowds, they are quiet morning musings, mostly indecipherable unless you stand very close in which case they are more often than not the calm deep voices of the elderly. Moving slowly through just one block I hear Spanish, Yiddish and English (spoken in accents both lilting and melodic and blunt and questioning).  As I wait to cross the street and go down the stairs to the subway I can hear a train arriving beneath my feet, just another quiet rumbling wave breaking in a sea of constant noise. The strong clear ping of the doors closing climbs to meet me as I rush down the stairs, hoping that another train is not far behind.