Lost in thought, with past events or future plans. Senses turned inward, turned down. I’m receiving sights and sounds but I’m ignoring them. All well and good. Its a perfectly natural state.

With soundwalks … a different state. Why? No reason, no big plan. I enjoy it. Turning outwards. Try to turn outwards and focus on this moment. It’s an antidote for over indulgence in the inward state. A relief. Therapy perhaps. Healing? Maybe, but the word’s too loaded nowadays.

Soundwalks. The space and time to pay attention to the hears and nows. Leaving past and future at the door? Leave space to simply listen? And sound, unlike visual `stuff’, is ephemeral. It demands presence. No half attentions. And even then, its like chasing rainbows.

But what a joy to just try and listen, with great big ears. That truck, yes, noisy, but listen to it pan from left to right, pneumatic tyres shearing on a wet street. And the breeze in big old leaves of the plane. And the footsteps, high heels tapping, trainers shuffling. Some fast, urgent, some slow, lazy, no particular place to go. And the rustle of plastic bags, no doubt soon just a memory. And the coo-ing of pigeons, a rich, warm low purring. Wrap myself up in it. The distant beating of helicopter blades, a fast drum beat from a huge kick drum, soon masked by the high whine of the engine. Excitement. Inexplicable excitement.

And that’s just the first fifteen seconds. And without doing anything too. Just listening and trying, as John Cage would have it, to `let the sounds be themselves’.

But I can’t hear a sound out of context. I can’t let the sound be itself. The helicopter, I try, but there’s `Apocalypse Now’. Every time. I try again, but the rainbow fades. Those wheels on wet streets takes me back to Rusholme on a rainy Friday night, after pub, after club, on the way home. So much for leaving past at the door. Every sound, a reminder, a signpost, of something else. Still therapy though.

Then, we can play. Why? No reason. Just play. Leave for later all the reasons, the oughts and shoulds, leave them for the in-world.

I can of course play with a sound recorder. Digital expensive, luxury play. And a microphone. I can record all these sounds, headphones clamped to my skull worrying about quality and wind noise and handling noise. I could.

But, to be honest, nowadays I find sound recording distracting. Fiddling with buttons and screens getting in the way of listening. Headphones distorting the sound field. And always with that digital hiss.

No, I’ll use my ears as supplied, without any intermediaries. And, when I feel like it, when I want to make a record, I’ll use a pencil and paper as a very basic analogue sound recorder. Here’s what I’ll do

I put my fingers in my ears. Block out the out sound. Create my own anechoic chamber. I hear my breath. My creaking fingers. My heart, perhaps. All else is muffled. I move my fingers and the out sounds rush in, clearer, sharper, just for a moment.

I put my ear to things. I feel self conscious. But everything sounds. Close to walls. To wire fences. To pipes. To the ground. What can I hear. What do I want to hear.

I cup my ears with my hands. Make my ears bigger. Two satellites. I hear distant things. Bird song, always bird song. I face the clouds and imagine I hear them too.

A list. In my British made Silvine note book I list all the sounds I can hear, one after the other. No attempt is made to pick and choose. Exeter Cathedral Green 14:07/raucous gulls cry/roll of buggy wheels on cobbles/this vehicle is reversing/babies cry/pigeons/gull cry/brake screech/slow engine and so on and so on, until 14:11, when I press stop and end my recording.

A sketch. I draw the sounds I hear. Squiggles, round shapes, spirals, angles, zig-zags. A sound doodle. A graphic score, that only makes sense to me. Completely unique. And, with hindsight as ephemeral as the sounds.

A word. I make up words for sounds. I write one long unbroken word to describe what I’m hearing. Like the sounds, there is no end to this word. But I finish when I’m done. I read it back. Dada nonsense.

A map. Another graphic score. I locate discrete sounds in the surround sound field. I mark their location, in words, drawings. A spidery diagram.

All these things at the time, engage me with the hear and now sound world. Immediately afterwards, they seem rather throw away. But they age well. A few months later, a few years later they prompt sound memories of the places I’ve been. I like that. A really personal practice.

Then, after my walk, my sound break, back to the in-world. But the sounds seep through now. I’m a little more alert, to the tapping of keyboard keys, the echo of the workman’s voice outside and the dull thud of bricks being laid on sand, hushed conversations, sibilant sssss’s carrying further than the mumbles. All is sounding, still.

Soundwalk/Performances

September 2004
Soundwalk at Art Farm Project show in Devon

September 2005
Soundwalk at Desire Lines arts and ecology conference, Dartington

November 2006
Soundwalk at Soud as Art Blurring the Boundaries conference, Aberdeen

June 2007
Soundwalks at Sonic Arts Nework annual Expo in Plymouth

November 2007
Soundwalk for music students at Goldsmiths College London

June 2008
Sounwalks for LiveArt Falmouth