What I Hear

On Thursday March 20, I decided to do a sound walk around Central Park around 11am by the entrance around 68th street. First, as I was getting closer to the park, I heard keynote sounds like honking, cars moving, and birds chirping. As I walked into the park, I heard a sound mark of church bells that I believe were coming from the church next to the park. As I continued to walk, I heard more keynote sounds of people’s footsteps (including my own) as it had rained the night before so the gravel was sticking to people’s shoes and making that noise. I heard the click-clack of a woman’s heels and the tiny footsteps of a squirrel running across the pavement. I heard more birds chirping, children laughing and playing, and tourists talking to one another and figuring out the direction they were heading. I also heard another sound mark of horses moving the carriages, as their hooves were clicking on the pavement. This is a sound mark because it is very common in Central Park to hear horse carriages. Dogs barking, construction noises, heavy breathing of the joggers on the running path, and a violinist playing for a crowd were all sound signals I heard as well. A cell phone dropping, a field trip of school children chatting, jumping, and running around, the breeze through the trees, and honking from the cars outside of the park were more examples of keynote sounds I heard while I was walking through Central Park last week Thursday.