Everyday Sounds

INSIDE

For my indoor location I am in my living room in my apartment at 504 Roxton Rd. in downtown Toronto. This is one street east of Ossington about half a block south of Bloor. It is 7:30 PM on a Thursday.


There is a low humming I never noticed before. I presume it comes from some sort of fan outside the window. It continues for the entire ten minutes.

A car horn that I can just hear. Two quick beeps.

A muffled voice talks for about five minutes oustide. A woman's voice. She sounds about 30 years old. I can only hear the peaks in her speech but for some reason I feel like I know her age. I can't hear who she is talking to or what she is talking about.

Another car horn. A long hong this time. Muffled.

A drill goes off for about 3 seconds.

The fridge hums constantly behind of all the other noises. It take me the first few minutes of listening to even notice this, it is so familiar to me.

My roomate is playing some music in her room. It is a low man's voice. It sounds nice with the high woman's voice talking outside.

The drill goes off again, this time for much longer.

The stove clicks regularly, about every thirty seconds three clicks.

And another car horn. The horns are sporadic but feel almost inevitable when they happen.

The drill, the woman, an airplane outside the window, the stove noises and the refrigerator and the music are all going at once.


I realize that the music is Leonard Cohen because 'So Long, Marianne' comes on and I can just make out the melody. I think I recognize it because it is from my childhood.

My phone rings six times beside me and jars me out of my listening. I always thought it only rang five times if I didn't answer it.

A police siren far away outside the window.

The stove again and a cough. The song changes and I don't recognize it anymore.

There is a long 'silence' where the fridge hum sounds almost deafening.

A door slams outside and the stove clicks.

OUTDOORS

I am in my backyard at 8 PM on a Thursday. My backyard face onto an alley then another set of houses, then Ossington. The noises from Ossington sound very loud from out here.

A long honk of a car horn.

Cars pass by every few seconds, they make 'whoosh' noises and quickly fade away.

Thewind periodically blows the grass and the leaves and then fades away again.

Whenever the wind picks up it is accompanied by various pitches of creaking noises and what sounds like a low rumble int he ground that I can almost feel instead of hearing.

A door slams.

A truck idles for about two minutes in front of the house and drowns out all of the other noises.

The truck stops, it feels very quiet for a few seconds then the other noises seem to start up again.

The Ossington bus goes by. It is a much lower, louder rumble than the other vehicles.

The sound of the outdoor motion detector light goes on with two 'click click' noises every time I pick up my pen.

A motorcycle drowns out everything else.

Three long horn honks.

Two raccoons shriek periodically. They are probably fighting over some garbage. This is by far the most disconcerting of all the noises. I find it funny how accustomed I have become to this noise that truly sounds like one animal killing another. I remember when I first moved to Toronto being terrified by the raccoon fight noises, now I barely remember to write it down.

They are making random high pitched screaming noises followed by lots of rustling of leaves.

Another car horn, one quick beep, higher pitched than the others.

The woman from before comes out again. I hear her distinctly say "I would take that $1000".

The wind picks up really loudly this time, it feels like it is in my ears.

Another bus goes by, presumably the Harbord bus this time. (Or maybe the other way around). Drowns out all the other sounds.

More raccoon shrieks

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When you're listening like this it feels like one sound quickly follows another. It is never quite silent. It starts to feel almost like a performance for my benefit or something.

The most prominent noises were car horns, the motorcycle, the time my phone rang, and the raccoons. Anything louder or higher pitched. The least prominent were the really persistent white noises that I am completely accustomed to. Like the fridge humming and the fan outside the window that is always there. These noises sounded really loud during quiet periods but would then disappear completely, and they are only there if you listen to them, other noises are impossible to ignore, particularly when they're high pitched.

The sounds were all very different from each other. There are the low, steady sounds and the ones that break through the other noises. Some of the sounds were surprisingly nice together. Like the wound of the wind and the quiet clicking of the outdoor light, and the sound of the man on the record and the woman in really life talking and singing over each other. All of the sounds were very familiar even though I've never actively listened for them before.

I also noticed that when I was inside I still heard more outside noises than indoor ones.
I also never noticed how many different car horn noises there are.
I also found it interesting how I could recognize the various noises just because I listened in such familiar surroundings. For example, I knew exactly that any bus I heard was either the 63 Ossington or the 94 Harbord just because I know.

I found it interesting that it is never silent. There is a whole variety of background sounds and white noise that I just never listen for. Also, even when I could hear five different noises at once, I still realized that I would not have noticed any noise if I hadn't been listening. It was really interesting to notice that there is all of this layering of noise in my house all the time and I just never listen for it. And that what I generally perceive as silence is actually myriad noises playing over each other. Some of the sounds were really nice like music coming through two sets of doors and the wind outside and the steady hum of the refrigerator.

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