My life is noise. Between this blog, music projects, living near an airport’s landing flight path, and driving interstates with the windows down (and if I’m not doing that, then the a/c fans are blasting in my face). I live in the middle of a car-focused city, three or four streets over from the interstate.
My life is noise; noise is my life.
Even right now, while I write this, I’m listening to an Evan Dando cover of Big Star’s ”Ballad of El Goodo.” It’s a great cover of a great song, but unless I make a point to listen to it, it’s just noise.
Similarly, unless I sit down to listen to it specifically, the distinctly public radio style of reportage, editing, storytelling, and sound design - and the love of said style is this blog’s bread and butter - is reduced to mere noise.
Right now I’m hearing it as though it’s noise. I realized this on the way to work the other morning, when, speeding down one of the main thoroughfares through town, I turned up Morning Edition to hear it, but I wasn’t listening. I was, instead, singing ”Total Eclipse of the Heart,” because that damn Hurrah Torpedo version won’t get out of my head.
I’m not hearing like the active listener that you guys know I can be. So I’m going to try something here.
I recently updated my iPhone, and they’ve included a quite nice Voice Memos app. (Nevermind that I already have a four-track recorder for my phone, for these purposes, Voice Memos is better suited.)
So what I’m going to do is begin to document, in very short sound bites, the noises that keep me from paying full attention. Any time i realize there’s too much noise, I’ll bust out the app and document it.
I’m hoping this will achieve at least two things:
- Make me a better listener by forcing me to recognize when I’m getting distracted.
- Make me pay attention to silence. It’s not always noise that distracts me. It might be a thought or a splash of light.
So here’s my first attempt.
Talking to myself while listening to Paul Westerberg
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