sound postcards

the air is dense! and so different from bombay! 

to be picked up from here:

http://www.freesound.org/people/sindhu.tms/sounds/161338/    

and here:

http://www.freesound.org/people/sindhu.tms/sounds/161335/

xx

now listening

feeling like

it's been raining outside. i was making sounds about being in the rain, being underwater..

On this trip i spent a lot of time listening to sounds around me, imaging sounds for visuals which otherwise had no sound, or had sound i didnt enjoy. Its such an enriching exercise, also meditative. Soundscape make up most of the space..
Each place i visited had its own distinct sound.

At the grand canyon, i sat at the edge of a rock, and meditated for quite a while. Of the all the sounds I could hear, the loudest was of some kind of vehicular traffic in the distance. It was loud and almost sounded like a freeway with cars whizzing past every half minute. This surprised me because as far as i knew, the freeway was very far away, and even the internal grand canyon park roads are at quite a distance form the rim. But then again, i wasnt sure about the distanced, and i imagined that probably the vast empty canyon echoed a lot of sound. This disturbed me quite a lot, knowing that even all the way out there, i could still hear traffic.

Anyway, later i was telling dad this.. and he grinned a wide grin.. and slowly told me that what i thought to be traffic was actually loud canyon winds gushing at high speeds through pine forests and other dense wild shrubs 
:)
However much i love wind sounds, i think the Ocean has by the far the most orchestrated loud sounds.. it absorbs everything. It is my most favorite. The Pacific Ocean here is splendid..

the sound of santa cruz

in a somewhat secluded part of the beach in santa cruz (think of some hazy UCSC students sunbathing and a guy with a guitar), i sit down on a fallen tree and start searching for sounds. first thing i hear is the closest - the seaborne wind is sprinkled over all other sounds. then i hear the gulls and the ocean, and the shrieks from the little american boys and girls. after a minute or so a new sound (so distinct i can't believe i hadn't heard it before) starts to creep up on me. presently, i don't even know what it is but it originates from behind me. and it is fast taking over all other sounds in contest for my attention. it is a kind of a clanking, deep but precise. think of big mothlike bullets hitting a metal plate made mostly of wood. i look back to notice a yard of sailboats, neatly parked and promptly abandoned. walking towards it, i am able to discern how the sound is made - the ropes hit against the masts because of the sea breeze, and because they are positioned at different angles, they hit at different intervals. an orchestra of lonely sailboats is being made for me and me alone, their rhythm unpredictable but familiar. i stand in the middle of that yard for a long time, hearing only the sailboats and the wind, thinking that this is what makes oceans and symphonies alike.

Drummers Galore!

I had the best sunday in a long long time. The TamTams is this drum circle festival, where hundreds of people get together with all sorts of percussion instruments every sunday through the months of summer in this large park, and Jam. There are people dancing, playing music and chilling out. It was out of the world, literally. I cant tell you just how much i missed you two, and Gautam. I took all these pictures only to show you how much fun it was :) We have to come here together sometime.

The summer air is beautiful here. I spend my days walking/cycling, sitting on park benches, reading, singing. One afternoon we did a picnic in one the large parks, ate sandwiches, looked at the sun reflected through the still pond water and contemplated things of the outer space. Spending time with dad after such a long time is fun, we have lots to talk about. Couple of days back I sprained my foot, and ignored the pain in my excitement to do things. And plus my shoes werent meant for all the crazy amounts of walking i have been doing. But its pretty bad now, so have been under house arrest! Which means i am stuck to this stupid computer, with not much to do! 

Bises,

me

today is the day for waiting.. for entertainment purposes, i taught myself how to play everybody wants to be a cat from the aristocats. i also recorded this piece by mendelssohn bartholdy. it's a canon, which means that both flutes are playing the same notes, just one beat apart. the music is hidden between the two sets of notes, like when you put OHP sheets together to make new images.

pull the volume down before playing this!

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