Comments on: Sonic Childhood Memories

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:27:48 +0000

Lots of sounds associated with my childhood: certain voices, tree frogs, thunder, cars or motorbikes rounding the long curve by our house at night, train horns etc.
But what really stands out is the first time I was out after a really heavy snowfall. Nature’s anechoic chamber. Probably seven or eight and going out at night with my Dad, likely to help shovel it…. I remeber it as being the first time I noticed how nice it was for my ears to have a rest. Doesn’t happen much now, I live on the wet coast of Canada at the moment, but once in a while we get enough snow to bring it back.

By: Jon

Jon — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 01:04:59 +0000

In the early 60′s, my older brother worked at a radio station and brought home a HiFi demo record of Jim Bacchus as Mr. Magoo. I don’t remember the details of the ‘story’ but I was totally sucked in by the sound effects.
Not long after, my dad bought a small reel to reel tape recorder that we kids were allowed to play with. It had a green glowing level indicator tube on the front that fascinated me. I remember my brother and I were recording the usual seven year old drivel when my mother went by with the vacuum. The air blast from the vacuum hit the mic and faded as she passed. When we played it back it was a rocket blasting off! I have never listened to anything the same way since.

By: tim

tim — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:21:16 +0000

As a small boy I had piano lessons once a week with a lovely teacher who put up with me not practicing & refusing to learn to sight read… But the sound I remember was not the piano – it was two tiny daschund dogs she had that were really yappy whenever anyone opened the gate to walk up the path to her house. Their yapping when I arrived filled me with that ‘here we go again’ feeling… But their yapping when the next student arrived signified imminent freedom!!! I could go back to walking around with a head full of dreams rather than trying to decipher tadpoles scribbled on paper!

By: Max

Max — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:22:22 +0000

When I was a child my parents went with us to their house in Italy – six weeks every summer. The atmosphere there was completely different to our “normal” surrounding: In Germany we lived in the middle of a town; the house in Italy was on a hill above the sea. The climate was hotter and less rainy, the smells were different, and plants and animals were also of another kind. It was almost a dream-like setting, being there under the hot sun for so long.

Because of the sun we kept the shutters closed during the day, and sometimes we stayed inside at lunchtime. It was very quiet in the house at this time of the day. But in the middle of every room there were flies circling in the air. It’s the sound of these flies I remember vividly. When I encounter it accidentally nowadays – because the right kind of fly passes by one of my ears, for example – I’m immediately transferred back in this childhood summer dream.

Of course there are other sounds connected to this place and time. 30 years ago the old Fiat 500 models were abundant on the streets of the towns nearby; their motor had a very distinctive sound unheared today. And there’s the noise of the wind blowing through the pines; a very powerful, roaring noise. The frogs croaking all night in spring, the deafening crickets in the summer woods…

By: poorly controlled » memories of sound

poorly controlled » memories of sound — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:13:00 +0000

[...] Tim at The Music of Sound asks a really interesting question: “What are the sonic memories of your childhood?” [...]

By: greg

greg — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:46:59 +0000

i grew up in the sf bay area in berkeley (the east bay). we have a subway called “bart.” the sound of the bart train moving along is such an interesting sound from my childhood. one can hear it from quite a ways away, not because it was super loud, but probably because it was above ground (in some locations) and was so unique that you could identify it so easily. i was back home recently, but did not have much time to try to record it. getting different perspectives would be ideal. i hope that the next time i’m home i can get some good recordings made because i can imagine using it in something sound design wise.

By: Kevin Seward

Kevin Seward — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:06:20 +0000

The silo ‘verb sampling sounds like fun (esp. in the days of little memory/much looping). Everyone needs more cavernous space to holler in.

By: tim

tim — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:30:31 +0000

Ah yes – I love grain silos & remember playing in them when they were empty & relishing the thunderous reverb… and I remember later as a teenager borrowing a friends sampler (a very very early Roland sampler) and stringing to gether four power extention cords & recording a strummed acoustic guitar chord inside there, and then looping it backwards/forwards, so it became like an ocean wave of verb…. I have a few grain silo recordings in my library & whenever I hear them it sends me back there…

By: Kevin Seward

Kevin Seward — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:46:27 +0000

Every early sound that stays with me is a distant sound.

Also from the country, I most remember the sound of tires on blacktop starting a mile or so away. My surreal expression is aspirating tires, like a slow continuous inward breath louder and closer until the car is past and the breath goes out & away. This esp. at bedtime when I couldn’t sleep. Hearing and seeing the lights. The closest the road came was roughly 200 feet.

Farther away than that, back beyond the fields, in the swampy woods behind, there were hog lots with metal grain feeders. A feeder is a big metal cylinder that tapers down to join a round base. That base was a trough with many lids radiating for a hog to nuzzle under and lift to get at the feed. A hog would eat for a bit, then leave letting the metal lid slam down. Roughly speaking the slam is like a snare–there’s short hollow metal hit and a rattle that lasts a little after. Faraway, it’s duller and reflects off the woods.

And always the general sound occurs whenever a hog leaves a lidded opening. Maybe one leaves and another close by leaves soon after (that slam or the first one gives a nudge). Or a bunch that are feeding get spooked and several lids slam/rattle shut.

I went to school etc. and hog raising shifted indoors. I can’t remember the last time I heard that sound (prob. 20, 25 years ago) or where’d I could go to hear it again.

The third distant sound is the roar of vast fans in a grain dryer up the road. Electric fans with blades the size of airplane props drive butane heated air through bins of corn, peanuts and soybeans. It’s a big drone heard in autumn, early winter. More occasional was the sound of grain elevators running.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:02:56 +0000

Also being a country lad, the sounds of frogs, crickets and cicadas were an early memory, and still today are loaded with “summer holiday” feeling.

There was also an old-fashioned air raid siren in the village, which was used to summon all the volunteer firemen in case of an incident. It sounded just like the ones you hear in old WWII movies. Could that explain a penchant for Varese?