Soundscape (Calle Industria)
As part of the class's emphasis on music and sound, I spent forty minutes writing down every sound I could hear:
Floor-level barred window, Casa Cristina, Centro Havana, Cuba; Monday, January 4, 3:15pm
There’s a small, semicircular, barred, unglazed window at floor level in Cristina’s TV room, looking out above the street at a height of about 10 feet. I have a limited range of vision, but since it’s completely open to the outside air, I can hear further than I can see.
The drip of at least four distinct gutter pipes a full story above the street, ~2 drops a second; one pipe gushed noticeably loudly for half a minute when a woman mopping her balcony sent a headful of water down. The dripping is a crisp, crackling sound, flatter with larger streams of water.
A wheelbarrow, empty, the wheels rattling, a jumbled sound, going from left to right (west to east, roughly), and the footsteps of the person pushing it, the wetness of the street audible in the scuff of their shoes. Another wheelbarrow, one-wheeled, a softer, smoother sound, a wider wheel.
Again, the crackle of the woman cleaning her balcony.
A middle-aged man with a green shirt in the doorway of the green house across the street, glasses propped on his brows, smoking, talks rapid-fire to a women on my side of the street, below and to the right of me (I can’t tell if she’s in the doorway of my own building, or just next to it); whatever it is she wants, he’ll get it tomorrow, he says, he said something about it to somebody yesterday. Moments later the same man says an accented Merry Christmas to a passing tourist.
Scrape thunk of a shovel sliding into the belly of a wheelbarrow, scraping gravel or sand to my left.
Two men greet each other, and their handshake clap sounds like a flower unfurling in super high speed—fleshy, organic, percussive.
An old man limps by, shuffling, a flip flop on one foot and a shoe on the other—slide, stomp, slide, stomp, dusty.
Dopplered growl of an old car’s engine driving steady through the street movement, the grainy hush of its tires.
The man in the green shirt talks to a man inside the building across the street.
A car passes with a dip in the sound as it slows to navigate around people.
The shoveling has stopped.
A rusty clang as a door in my house opens.
Another, faster old car engine; another younger car guns it, pauses, guns it again.
A woman shouts three times for Ladita, her voice rising longer and sharper on the i each time.
A young man hums just below my window.
The calling woman knocks five times briskly on the front door of the house across the street.
A bicitaxi whirs heavily down the street.
A young man’s keys jangle as he walks by. An old man calls a greeting to him as he heads east.
The calling woman isn’t being answered; she talks to the young man, follows him back across the street, and there’s the high acidic buzz of the timbre.
The woman cleaning her balcony sends another crackling cascade of water down.
The wheelbarrow passes again to the right, squeaking, loaded with heavy rubble.
Two talking men greet a third, who joins them as they continue left.
Up the street to the left, salsa music starts playing. The salsa music is mostly bass and drumbeat at this distance.
A door in my house opens, the sound light, hollow, yellow, metallic.
The three men who were walking away turn back and call loudly to someone.
The shoveling is present again, a metronomic scrape punctuated by the thick susurrus of the rubble dumping into the wheelbarrow.
A bicitaxi passes, loud radio and whistling driver. An older car rumbles up and parks on the other side of the street, parks.
A small dog is barking somewhere in my house.
Some woman shouts “oye.”
The car starts up again quickly.
Behind me, in the house, through a series of open doors and interior courtyards, I hear a parrot’s creaky warble.
The woman cleans her balcony again, waterfalling.
The car backs up in purring lurches, parks, turns off and on again, pulls back up to where it first parked, parks.
The water is still falling from the woman’s balcony.
Behind me in the room, the rotating fan is quiet. I wish I could, but I can’t hear any soft rustle of the drying towels pinned to dry as they ripple in the breeze, not even when I brush under and around them to leave.