The Sound of Silence

I have been making an attempt to have & experience more silence lately. Maybe that is why I have not posted here in a few weeks ;-) It may seem strange for a musician, but someone once said very eloquently that music is contained in the space between the notes. How true!

Now, I enjoy my iPod as much as everyone else. It allows me to take with me not only my purchased music, but also my own compositions & drafts, so that I can listen to them in various environments. This generates many more musical ideas. While I enjoy silence, I am not talking here about an anechoic chamber (sound-deprivation chamber), even though I’d love to experience that sometime soon. If anyone knows how to get me some time in one, I’d be forever grateful.

What I am referring to here is more akin to listening to our surroundings. When I exercise outside, I listen to the immediate sounds around me, instead of my mp3 player. I quite honestly have never been able to exercise with one, not that there is anything wrong with using a music player. When I am out in nature though, or open a window at home early in the morning, I enjoy the seeming cacophony out there. The sunrise & sunset are the two busiest “sound” times in nature. Nocturnal animals go to sleep before or at sunrise, while diurnal animals, like most humans, get to start the day. The process reverses itself at sunset. Sometimes there is a deafening level of sound, & then quickly shifts as everyone goes about their business (or is it “busy-ness”?). Try it sometime!

An aspect seldom talked about in all the discussions regarding our disappearing ecological environments, is that our soundscape ecology is also disappearing with them. Once a natural environment is gone, its unique sounds are lost forever, as no two environments are exactly alike. This is similar to no two music performances ever being exactly alike, even when played by the same musicians, at the same venue. I have also been thinking more about what a healthy sound environment does to our own health. I cannot help but notice how my indoor cats glue themselves to the open windows at home, listening to & admiring everything outside. I have also noticed this effect, to a much lesser extent, when I play a nature recording inside of my home. It is a distant second choice for the cats, & for me, but better than no nature sounds at all, especially in the middle of the winter here in New England, when we remain mostly indoors.

I’ve long admired & listened to the work of Bernie Krause with his nature recordings. You can check them out at
Wild Sanctuary . He truly has made excellent nature recordings & is helping preserve a shifting soundscape.

Another area where silence plays a central role in my life is in my meditation practice, as well as in my mantra chanting practice. During meditation, the focus for me becomes my breathing. As my mind & breath quiet down, I can start to feel & eventually hear the pumping heart, & the blood rushing through my veins. When doing chanting, often we focus on the sounds of course, but there is an interesting experience of silence afterwards, while there seems to be the sound energy still floating around after we stop.

I welcome your thoughts & experiences with sound.

Blessings,

Eduardo