Descriptive Essay On A Soundwalk

Before embarking on my soundwalk, I had a few basic expectations of sounds I would encounter, mostly based on prior memories of wandering MIT’s campus. I knew what the soft, low murmurs should sound like when traversing the corridors. I knew to expect the clip-clop of hard stepping walkers in the silent tunnels, and the high pitched buzzing and whining of electrical components overhead. Outside, the wind would make soft, mid pitched whuuu and shhh noises, which would serve as background for trees that would swish or rustle, people who’s voices would carry far in the open area, and the clanking and clanking metallic sounds of the construction that constantly plagues MIT.

During the soundwalk, I was constantly surprised by the amount of detailed and minute differences in sounds I was able to hear when paying attention. I not only heard footsteps, but I heard different kinds of footsteps, belonging different kinds of people wearing different styles of shoe. Flips flops would make that distinctive clip clop sound, but would lose the lower frequency thump belonging …show more content…
Members of the group, or often even the group as a whole, created roughly two thirds of all the interesting sounds I noticed during my walk. A dramatic example was in stairwells. In tall, narrow spaces, steps became very obvious, growing in intensity and with a newfound sense of determination and effort caused by having to exert more effort to climb the stairs. This wouldn’t be too dramatic, if it wasn’t for the stairs vibrating in time with the group’s march, causing an extremely loud sub-bass oscillation to fill the entire stairwell, reminiscent of the wibble wobble modes caused by shaking a sheet of polycarbonate only much lower and richer. This sub-bass oscillation was almost deafening, and was probably one of the most memorable moments of the soundwalk, as well as a sound I never expected to