Down here in the basement the air is sticky and humid, and the music is loud. I can feel the bass moving through my body. It’s in the floor, beneath me. Up on the top floors you can listen to music, too, but in the basement you can play it loud. The room is nestledContinue reading “A Eulogy for Café Resonance”
Article Type Archives
Bagpipes Blew My Mind
My partner Emily and I moved to Glasgow from Toronto a year ago. The first TV shows we saw included a pipe-band championship and a shepherding competition. Both were brilliant to listen to. We thought that’s what TV was going to be here. It isn’t. And aside from the guys on Buchanan St. playing “ScotlandContinue reading “Bagpipes Blew My Mind”
Bus Ride Home—October
Slow, manic whine of police sirens, urgent goose-call of fire engines, anxious “wait for me” of trailing first responders. All muffled under soft falling snow and crystallizing puddles and the breathing of almost three dozen passengers pressed close. And the incessant growl of city bus engine and tires and radiator, the whirring mumble not quiteContinue reading “Bus Ride Home—October”
First-place Winner, Musicworks 2017 Sonic Geography Writing Contest
Childhood has no single place, no secret garden, no single carousel to ride on, nor tree branch to fall from: just hours, that slip away, so similar to music, which has no place either, just passing time it tries to keep up with. In playgrounds kids run in circles, sliding down, climbing up the imaginedContinue reading “First-place Winner, Musicworks 2017 Sonic Geography Writing Contest”
Cerro Bellavista Rooftop, Valparaíso
When rain falls, it falls into the open-air stairwell unopposed, rattling metal banisters and pattering on tile. Human sounds congeal below you like wet papier-mâché: gentle voices ricocheting around the stucco walls; kids’ laughter bubbling out of an open window; loose sandals slapping themselves silly on the stairs. A flute that’s been carving filigree inContinue reading “Cerro Bellavista Rooftop, Valparaíso”
Tom Wayman’s “Elemental Musics: Selkirk Mountains”
1. ARIA Alpine wind in the stunted firs half whispers an austere wistfulness with overtones of regret at being compelled by a harsh landscape to be mercilessly forthright: a breathy flute-note surging and fading as the mountain exhales inhales 2. SONATA The susurrous crescendo rises amid the crowns of tall birch, cedar, pine,Continue reading “Tom Wayman’s “Elemental Musics: Selkirk Mountains””
Ocean Bug and Bird Songs
BORN CONFUSED. FLY AT LIGHT. Tonight you June bugs pelt my office window in a relentless barrage—desperate wings fanning air that will not hold and tap-tap-tap-tap-tap on the glass. I turn off the lights, sneak outside, guide you through the yard by the glow of my phone. A conductor of insects. Flap-flap-flap-flap-flap. We serenade eachContinue reading “Ocean Bug and Bird Songs”
Sonic City
We presume hush because business has yet to come. People stand, the movement of feet inaudible Over the creeping perception of noise An indistinguishable hum pervading the acoustic Of suitcases’ wheels Clitter-clattering across cobbled stones Some uneven, some gliding with ease — The bounce of speed announcing a sanguine rhythm To the muted silence ofContinue reading “Sonic City”
The Avian is the Message
Songbirds have a secret language. This is something I did not fully appreciate until recently, when I became immersed in their world. What may be music to our ears is bird-speak—a mating call, an aural fence, or simple prattle to stay in touch. There are people who can understand bird speak, who can instantly discernContinue reading “The Avian is the Message”
Los Arroyos in Stereo
A springtime hike through the hills of the Sierra Nevada, Andalucía, Spain. I follow my guide, Neftali, scrabbling up switchbacks, sweat from the raw sun cooling in the alpine breeze swishing my neck. The hike has been filled with talk. Neftali pointing out species, warning of sliding scree. He tells me the legends of theContinue reading “Los Arroyos in Stereo”
Shannon McKee’s “The Copy Room”
As I step into the undersized side room of the middle-school office, I want to remove my high heels. I want to kneel on the thin, brown carpet and touch my forehead to the ugly floor. I want to offer up a soft song. Because when I—a teacher’s assistant for twenty-five twelve-year-olds—cross the threshold ofContinue reading “Shannon McKee’s “The Copy Room””
Field Notes From Fort McMurray
in the damp morning air: rain pitter-patters on whispering leaves. inherited onomatopoeic vocabulary; true but tried tropes carrying with them vague echoes of that singular safety known to the time when board books taught us to affix words to sounds, predictably, repeatably. a wind sighs, branches rustle. the sounds of a forest reclaimed, tenuous rootsContinue reading “Field Notes From Fort McMurray”
The Blessed Riders of Streetcars in Vienna
Streetcars in Vienna are blessedly quiet. The machines—brand new, high-tech plastic platforms—announce themselves on approach with only a slight electric hum. I now react to their high pitch with the same short sprints I used to make to catch the lumbering College streetcar in Toronto. Riders of streetcars in Vienna are blessedly quiet. This isContinue reading “The Blessed Riders of Streetcars in Vienna”
A Walk in the Barrios
Buenos Aires, also known as Capital Federal, is the largest city in Argentina, with a population of three million—thirteen million including the greater urban area. The city is located on the western shore of Rio de la Plata (River of Silver), the widest estuary in the world, which channels the muddy waters of the ParanáContinue reading “A Walk in the Barrios”
Lisbon, Portugal
FULL TEXT AVAILABLE ONLY IN PRINT EDITION A wolfman wanders Lisbon’s Praça do Comercio, the broad public square facing the Tagus River estuary leading to the sea. It is nearly midnight. He is bearded, shirtless, and his bare feet slap the calçadas, the white stones that pave the city. He eyes the moon, tips hisContinue reading “Lisbon, Portugal”
The Ring Road, Iceland
FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY It’s not often in a lifetime that you get to circumnavigate an entire country. And it’s not often that you come across an entire country that’s a small island whose most remarkable work of public infrastructure is a two-lane highway that hugs its coast. Iceland may be best knownContinue reading “The Ring Road, Iceland”
Knoxville, Tennessee
FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY As with any American city, the dominant feature of the Knoxville soundscape is the almighty car. With an extension of the interstate zooming only a few blocks from downtown, and a multi-lane surface road separating the University of Tennessee from the city centre, the empire of the automobile isContinue reading “Knoxville, Tennessee”
Camino De Santiago De Compostela
FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY In the spring of 2010 we undertook a walk to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, a pilgrimage site since the Middle Ages. It’s the traditional burial site of Santiago, or St. James, one of Christ’s apostles who somehow made it from Jerusalem to northern Spain around ad 40Continue reading “Camino De Santiago De Compostela”
Milan
FULL-TEXT AVAILABLE IN PRINT EDITION ONLY A sonic spectre is haunting Milan’s music scene. That ghostly presence is Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901), Italy’s best-known composer of romantic operas, who moved to the city when young, shot to fame with Nabucco in 1842, and whose repertoire has been a staple of Teatro alla Scala ever since. Verdi,Continue reading “Milan”
A Few More Words About Times Square
Max Neuhaus’ permanent sound installation, Times Square (1977–1992; 2002–present), has become a place that I visit every time I find myself in New York City. There is something about revisiting it, spending some time standing on the pedestrian traffic island between Forty-Fifth and Forty-Sixth Streets listening to the clatter of footsteps pace across the concrete,Continue reading “A Few More Words About Times Square”
Paris, France
On June 21, 1982, the French Ministry of Culture introduced the first Fête de la Musique (meaning celebration/feast of music, and a homophone of Faites-musique—make music), a large street party where musicians reignite ancient pagan solstice rituals in spontaneous concerts featuring amateur and professional musicians from all genres. Noise and drinking restrictions are relaxed, andContinue reading “Paris, France”
Havana, Cuba
What does a city sound like whose history spans periods of colonial opulence, Mafia casino decadence, and a dying communist revolution? The habanera, the salsa, and reggaeton. Havana’s storied past has produced a musical culture as varied and deep as the sociopolitical eras that it has survived. During the nineteenth century Havana gave birth toContinue reading “Havana, Cuba”
Rings of Beijing
I sit staring at the laptop screen in my Beijing hotel room. Writers’ block. Silently trying to formulate words. No sounds enter my consciousness. Only the insistent hum of the laptop. Until my listening body is dropped into a pool of sound. Concentric sonic circles ripple out from the imitation Qing chair. My energy isContinue reading “Rings of Beijing”
Kitchen Chorus
over breakfast, writing in my head, i can’t hear the words land—they’re swallowed back down the chute they come from—thud of molars as they chew buttered toast which slides, with a slick suck, into the whirlpool of digestive juices—outside, rain is rivetting itself to the ground, a seamless crackle all around tacks maple leaf toContinue reading “Kitchen Chorus”