Lesson 5: Textures

[Recording setup with a family member behind the camera.]

This is a lesson on textures. A word of warning before you listen: a lot of these are sounds you’ll want to hear in person, not necessarily through a recording. I’m going to do my best to demonstrate the different sounds, but this is really something that’s better if you go outside and try it for yourself. So put on a good set of headphones if you’re ready, and let’s go.

Right here is a big concrete wall, right in front of my face. You might be able to hear it just from me talking — but let’s try clicking sticks together. [Stick clicks against the wall’s reflection.] These are the same sticks I used in the distance lesson; I’m just having you focus on a different thing. You don’t want to focus on the echoes coming back to you — you want to focus on the immediate sound, right here. The sound you’re listening for is right in front of you. You’re not hitting the wall with the stick — you’re hitting the wall with your sound.

Now let’s find something else to hit with sound. And just in time for the sun to come out — here’s a bush. The bush is right in front of my face, right here. You can hear it better when I’m talking down here than if I stand up, because standing up you hear a bunch of sound from the houses instead. [He demonstrates from both heights.] Try experimenting with that — there might be things you’re missing when you’re standing. Kneel down, or even sit down, and just listen. I actually find it easier to hear the difference while talking, because a voice is a more constant frequency than clicking sticks. But either way — try it.

Now we’re coming toward a tree. Above me is a bunch of branches — you can tell by the shade. As we get closer… here’s the tree. It’s right in front of me now, so I can touch it. There are two branches here — one here, one here — but they sound basically the same, because they’re made of the same hard wood. I’m moving my head back and forth to show you what this sounds like. But like I said: it’s better to try this in person. There’s only so much I can do for you in a recording. What you really want to do is go outside, look for sounds yourself, walk up to objects, touch them, and find out what they have.

[They walk to a gazebo.]

Now here we are at a gazebo — like a building with no walls, just pillars all around me. You can hear sound coming back at me from a bunch of different angles, but there are holes. If I walk up to this pillar — there’s a pillar. If I move a little to my right — no more pillar. It’s more open that way. When you’re facing a hole, it sounds open; when something’s right in front of you, it answers. Here’s another one: pillar directly in front of me — including while I’m talking — and… no more pillar. More open.

And when I come outside the gazebo, now it’s really open, and there isn’t much sound coming back to me, because all those pillars are behind me. There are a few things over here — this wall, and this pot. If I move away from the pot, toward the open area, we get more of an open sound again. Over here are bushes — and if we click over them, we can hear the houses across the street. As we turn back toward the gazebo, now we start to hear it again. Closer… now we’re back in here. And out the other side, to get even farther away.

Let’s see if we can hear the gazebo from super far away. We’re on the other side now — let’s get off this thing and get farther away. A little farther. [Clicks.] Can you hear it? Let’s do more. Now I’m at the bottom of the hill. Try to pick out, from all the sound coming back to you, which one you think is the gazebo. I’m keeping it in front of me so I can hear what’s going on. Backed up a few more steps — it might start to blend in, but let’s see if we can still find it. [Clicks from far away.] I think that’s about as far as I can go.

So — when finding textures, it’s very important to go around and explore. Everything sounds different, the way things look different to sighted people. And since you probably won’t know exactly what something is just by clicking at it, don’t be afraid to go up and touch things, so you can find out what it is and what it sounds like. All right — go out and find this stuff for yourself, and see what you can find.