The sound of the mailbox

The scene I chose was the mailbox shutting. The sound was decently loud as the mailbox would close more. The scene I imagine going along with this sound is the sound of two neighbors awkwardly talking to one another since this is the only time they see one another. At this point in the conversation one neighbor is asking the other how her family is doing. Then the other neighbor responds. By this point their conversation is almost over because they saw each other when they originally went out to the mailbox.

Depending on if this is an apartment building or outside of 2 houses depends on what is heard as the background noise. In the case of the two houses I hear a light wind and birds chirping. But I think the first thing I thought was it was an apartment building and there is music in the background. Since it is an apartment building I think the radio would be playing so it would probably be a hot new single. What I am hearing is “Perfect” by One Direction. Since I love it so much I can hear the whole song playing all the way though. But since this would only be a short encounter the main part I hear when the mailbox is closing is the chorus playing in the background.

The last things I here is the sound of both of them starting to walk away in their separate directions back to their apartments. But right before that I hear the sound of the person who is closing their mailbox looking though their mail, the sound of papers being shuffled. Then the scene ends.

The scene begins with the sound of footsteps in snow. Two people are walking through the snow slightly out of sync. Both are heavily breathing from a long day of walking along a highway. They both take long and heavy breaths, and breathe out puffs of steamy air. Neither person speaks to the each other at first and the distant sounds of cars on a highway can be heard in the background.

“I’m calling it a day,” a young woman’s voice pipes up.

A man’s voice grunts in return, as if to say yes.

The man begins to narrate the scene, stating that it is the couple’s 20^th day travelling by foot across the country. They both are travelling musicians who met early in their journey and happen to be headed to the same place: the northern coast of California.

“I’ll start the fire,” the woman says. The footsteps seize and the highway sounds are even more in the distance. The two have arrived in their campsite in the woods. Branches creak under the heavy amount of snow. Wind whistles through the barren branches.

The narration continues. The man says that although they are travelling partners, the two don’t speak very much while they commute from place to another. It is only at night, when they start the fire at the campsite that they finally can converse.

The sound of rocks rubbing together can be heard behind the narration, along with the continued creak of branches. A fire is started and its soft crackle plays sweetly into the night air.

The two begin to talk and laugh. They delve into the histories of their childhood. Eventually, the man pulls out his road guitar and plays the first song he ever wrote, while on the road at age 15. The song becomes the most prominent sound, although the small fire can still be heard in the background. The woman begins to sing the harmony.

Choosing the sound of the buttons being pressed on a calculator, I imagined the sound of a student in class, during a math test. Of course, not a math class at Pitt, because there is rarely a math class at Pitt where a calculator can be used on an exam. Anyway, I picture students in a classroom, maybe a big lecture hall. Someone is typing away on their calculator, and I imagine big numbers, based on the constant button pressing. Perhaps the person is multiplying numbers with many decimals places.

I can hear, well in my head I imagine, adding noises and sounds that would be also be heard during a test, because of course silence is never a thing. There is the sound of erasers being abused, the sound of the cough of the guy three rows over, the sound of a pencil being tapped against the table. Other sounds could be the of chalk as the teacher writes the time remaining on the black board, or of the sniff of the girl sitting to the right, or of papers flipping, or the idiot who never turned off their cell phone alarm, disrupting everyone. There are so many insignificant sounds involved in a test, or math test, that I can think of, including the sound of a calculator.

There are other sound on the collection list that could be included in this, like the sound of a door closing, or of a fan going off on the ceiling of the room, among others. There are so many sounds that could be added to create the scene and make things interesting, revolving around the sound of the calculator and layering different things among the “silence” of an exam.

There’s a student shuffling papers on a desk as a teacher groans on lecturing in a stuffy room of disinterested students. Coughs sprinkle the time and a restless leg shuffles moment to moment against the linoleum floor. The student closest to the listener opens a bottle of Snapple, with a pop giving the name justice as the cap twists with a quick press and a slow release, just so not to spill. After a few gulps the student rests his bottle and clicks the cap as the lecture drones. The clicks are few but unmissed by the teacher as she drags her heels slightly, walking across the faux-floor room. A ruler smacks a nearby desk, and a chair creeks in shock before the heels shuffle back to the front. A slow crescendo of accusations builds into the background bringing discontent to the teacher once more. “Hush!”  The scene is silent, forcing the listener to become aware of his own adjacent sounds outside of the headphones, just as the students are doing themselves in the midst of silence within the scene. A bell rings and the hurried stampede of back pack zippers, shutting binders, and chairs scratching the plastic floor flood into the right spectrum of hearing. A serious tone is heard on the left asking that “Travis come see me.” The lid is gripped to the lip of the bottle with a twist followed by footsteps in the immediate of the listener that slowly fade as the student walks away and the scene ends.

Snapple caps are passively occupying to the immediate mind, but actively distracting to the vicinity.

Today while I was working on homework in my room with a couple friends, I realized how weird the sounds of the room were. There were four of us, all doing different homework assignments. Each one of us was frustrated because none of us knew how to solve the problems we were working on.

This is the scene that I’m imagining my sound appearing in, and the sound that inspired me to do this scene was of the vent. When many people are all intensely focused on what they’re doing, they aren’t talking or moving around very much. The only sounds in the room were of the vents blowing, the blinds moving from the vents, pencils scratching paper, and the occasional sigh.

The mood of the room is very similar to the sounds. The room and sounds are both subdued: quiet, focused, and slightly sad. Anyone who walks into this room would feel compelled to stay silent, and most people wouldn’t stick around long after wandering in.

Every once in a while, another sound can be heard from outside the room. Someone in another room laughing or cheering or shouting to a friend. The distant sounds only serve to subdue the mood in the study room even more. It frustrates everyone there; they know that everyone else around them are enjoying their afternoon, relaxing in the closing hours of their weekend. But none of them are making progress and are unable to help one another.

Eventually the soundscape changes radically. Books and laptops closing, notebooks and papers being shoved into backpacks, backpacks being zipped up and put on, and finally feet shuffling dejectedly out of the room. With these sounds comes a stop to the others, no more pencils scratching and no more sighing. The afternoon’s work is finally done.

The sound I selected was the noise of a coin spinning. It’s such an easily recognizable sound and I think it has a number of contexts it could be used in. The mood I would interested in evoking would be similar to a film noir. I would want the soundscape to evoke a dark, mysterious, vintage feeling. The soundscape would be set in roughly, the 1950’s.

The soundscape would begin outside. There would be a jazz number playing faintly in the background. The listener would hear the sound of a car driving by, the tires splashing the residual water from the rain earlier in the day. In the distance you would hear the sound of a police siren, fading in and then out. The most prominent noise would be that of footsteps walking down a sidewalk.

The footsteps would stop and the sound of a door opening would be heard and the faint murmur of voices. The jazz number would stop, being replaced by the music of a band and their singer in our new setting, a jazz club. The sound of someone pulling out a chair would be heard, then the dull noise of them sitting down. A muted exchange would be heard between the “main character” and a waiter, perhaps a main character ordering a drink. The primary focus would be on the noises of the environment, a woman laughing, the clinking of glasses, the instruments in the jazz band, or the throaty voice of the singer.

The interplaying sounds of the environment would be heard until the end of the soundscape. There the noise of a chair being pushed away from a table would play, and the voice of the “main character” would be heard clearly for the first and only time saying, “Keep the change”. Lastly, the sound of a coin spinning would be heard. All other noises would fade out so the audience is left only with the noise of the coin before it settles.

The sound I decided to choose was the “creaking bed” sound because it immediately creeped me out when I was listening to it. It screams horror movie to me and I feel like it could be used in a multitude of ways to make a scene appear scarier and to build suspense.

I can imagine a scene where a character wakes up in the middle of the night to the creaking noise and then debates whether or not to go investigate the sound. Despite originating from a bed, the creaking noise could be manipulated slightly to sound like creaky floorboards, shutters, or maybe even a rusty door hinge. It can be anything, and that makes it scarier.

The character will decide to go investigate despite being on by themselves in the house, maybe talking to themselves as they go to try and remain calm. The house is old, and so the creaking noise could just be from that, but nonetheless the character is spooked. There’s no music–just silence, and the creaking noise, and the occasional “hello?” called out in fear as the character starts abandon their rational thinking and doubt their reality.

In the background of the sound I can almost hear someone breathing, if I listen closely. As the character gets closer to where the sound is coming from, they’ll start to hear that too, and it’ll be goosebumps galore for the audience. Could it be possible that they aren’t alone? Could there be a rational explanation for this?

Other additional sounds that could be used in this scene are other creepy sounding things including: the sound of lights flickering, a door slamming, the wind moaning, an owl hooting, and distant murmurings.

At the end of the scene, the character must make the choice to open the door to the dark room that contains the sound or to turn back and try and forget about the whole thing.

The sound that I choose to write about is the “Roommate vacuuming” sound. Found this sound to be interesting because I feel that it could be applied to many different situations, only not dealing with roommates. The first scene that came to mind that this could be applied is the opening scene of a crime show. The scene could be inside the house where the crime is about to take place. No one would be originally speaking in the scene, the audio editors could originally make it so that the only noise you hear is the vacuum running. Then show the killer outside the house. This way it adds to the feeling that all the people in the show hear is the vacuum, thus they are delirious and unaware of the attacker about to enter the home. Other sounds would then fade in next, such as the sound of the TV and dishes being watched. Creepy, and eerie music would then fade in and add to the intensity and to the feeling that something bad was about to happen. I would imagine minimal talking to take place, but if the wife were to shout something at the husband from anther room to illustrate that they are apart, but the vacuum running drones out the sound, illustrating that the husband cant hear her. As the sound of the creepy music’s increases, so would the sound of the vacuum right before the crime happens and then suddenly the vacuum stops.