On a weekend night, only one sound can be heard communally throughout Davidson’s large college campus: the sound of Armfield. Colloquially named ‘F’, on a Saturday night, the apartment complex is home to the biggest party on campus. From the outskirts on Main Street to the Cross country trails out in the woods, the sounds of Music and raucous college students can be heard. This essay is an exploration and soundscape of the final minute of a Davidson Saturday night. Recordings of the same minute from different places around campus (The Well, Hobart Park, Cannon Hall, The Golf Course, and the top of F itself) will give a comprehensive study of how sound changes over distance and acoustic location. I will contextualize my work to that of sound scholars like Schafer, Gross, Guzy, Chion, and Cage. I seek to show how physical locations alter the perception of sound, to emphasize the value of noise in quiet places, and to help contextualize sound studies into the real world here at Davidson.
The Armfield apartments at F could best be described as the opposite of silence. Not only one enormous speaker is blasting music, but one in each of six different apartments playing six different songs that can be heard from the top of the hill and beyond. I have never been to a place that sounds quite like Armfield. In the heart of it, the spot I have labeled ‘The Epicenter’ on the campus map, all of the noise from all of the different houses blends together into a deafening cacophony, the mass of humanity, the shouting and talking and singing, everything becomes one unintelligible sound that is itself as unique as its surroundings. On any given Friday or Saturday night, the strange sounds coming from the bottom of the hill can be heard all around campus. Sound scholars like R. Murray Schafer categorize noises into distinct groups. On a base level, Schafer describes a keynote sound as the “anchor or fundamental tone” of the soundscape, or even the “behavior or life style of a society”(Schafer, 100). The sounds of F are quintessential to the life style of college and the behavior of the people that patronize it. The party culture of F is so ingrained in Davidson culture that it would be amiss to hear it in complete silence on a Saturday night. Because it is so important socially and behaviorally in life here, the Keynote sound of a Weekend night at Davidson would be the sound that comes from F.
At the top of the apartment complex, there is a small island in the middle of the road where two cops always stand posted waiting for trouble. This spot is also equidistant from all of the fraternity houses and their speakers. Every song being played will converge at that location. While it is possible for the ear to pick up on an odd track or two, the sound and sense of each song cease to be recognizable and instead are interpreted as pure noise. The enjoyment of F becomes the enjoyment of noise, and despite its lack of sense, the noise at F holds a strange captivation. Nothing can be heard over it. Nothing can be understood. In the true center of F, the swell of noise is so intense that my ears forget to listen. An odd signal, or a conciously listened to foreground sound, might pop out and draw me out of my trance, but otherwise I could easily forget that I was so enveloped in the noise.(Schafer, 101) At the little island where the cops stand at night, F can be heard loud and clear. However, when standing there the noise of the people walking nearby trumps the music coming from the bottom. It is possible to make out specific people as they go past the microphone, but they quickly get lost into the dull roar of the apartments. The music is the backdrop upon which the entire soundscape rests. Every once in a while a part of a different song sticks out and is recognizable, but then seems to be swallowed up again. Sound here is not something desirable but without it F would be an entirely different place.
The area in between Sentelle and Cannon is one of my favorite acoustic environments on campus. Compared to the noise of F, this place produces an entirely different sound. The two buildings are so closely aligned that they trap the sound coming up the hill and bounce it back across the gap. Walking home late, the only sounds that stick out are the echos of ‘Soulja Boy’ and the occasional slamming door. The sounds here are more muted, nowhere near as dense, but interesting in their own right. On this particular Saturday, one song is recognizable as it winds its way up from Armfield. Because it is more of an isolated location, it is easier to pick out one song over the noise. It is still possible to hear the quiet roar coming from down the hill, with a few shouts cresting over top. Even though they are recorded at the same minute, the environment and surroundings create two completely different soundscapes.
Though the golf course is geographically farther away from most of the other points, its unique landscape amplifies certain sounds of the night. At 11:59, I stood and recorded the world from the middle of nowhere. Compared to the other locations, it can seem less intense. Screams can be heard faintly popping out in the distance carrying far across the open grass. The music occasionally rolls in with the wind, but more often than not, the golf course is silent and peaceful. The noise coming from the apartments is hardly noticeable, almost a ghostly faint sound. It is only there when you desire to hear it. If it is not wanted, than it does not need to exist. The golf course is a happy medium where noise is present but not overwhelming. When Shafer describes the ear’s ability to “filter out undesirable sound in order to concentrate on what is desirable”, he believes that silence is the ultimate want of the ear (Schafer, 103). Out on the golf course that night, my biggest desire was to hear more of the weird contoured sound coming from F. Silence is not always the only longing of the ear.
As the locations get farther and farther away from F, the sounds of the wind and rustling leaves become more prevalent than the noise coming from Armfield. On a clearer night at the well or at Hobart park, the music can still be heard in the distance, however in these recordings there is hardly a hint of it. On that Saturday at Hobart park you could still hear the music with a naked ear. Yet through the recording everything is lost but the soft jingle of someone walking by and the knocking of wood on wood. At the Well, even though it was the same minute, the world was reportedly completely silent. Only the sounds of leaves scraping on the ground and the grain of iphone audio can be heard on the recording. The opposite of F, nothing could be heard because there was nothing to be heard. So far away from all of the lively dorms, even on the loudest nights it is expected to hear nothing but silence there. The silence never fails to impress me as I walk away from the apartments. No matter how noisy one particular minute at F is, at the same moment there is still peace and quiet found near the well.
In an article pondering the marketing potential of Finland’s natural noiselessness, Daniel Gross proposes that “In a loud world, Silence sells” (Gross). In an increasingly noisy world, silence is perceived as more of a boon than a burden. As much as I believe in the importance of silence Davidson would not be the same without its noisy Saturday nights. Out in North Carolina, silence is worth less to me than it was in a city like Washington. We are lucky to live in a place where finding silence is as easy as walking out 10 minutes into the woods, or even on a lucky night, walking out to the Davidson well. Noise is too often understood as something unwanted. Beauty can come from the ugly mass of noise that is F. Hearing the echoes bounce back and forth in between Cannon and Sentelle, the windy noise flowing out onto the golf course, the quiet murmur audible at Hobart park, something so massive can become so very small and easily manageable. The same noise at any given place on campus has the ability to be heard as something good. Enjoying dissonance is not something entirely confined to the Davidson environment. Marinna Guzy created a soundscape called Utopia that is based on “The beauty that arises from conflict”. The piece contrasted a soundscape’s both “micro and macro levels” that were both needed to “paint a picture of the diverse makeup of a community” (Guzy). While the location of the recording may contribute to a micro feature of the soundscape, the macro feature throughout all of Davidson Saturday night is the noise of F. While the sounds of F are nearly ubiquitous on campus, each chosen location presents them in their own unique ways.
With all of these noises from all of these different places, it is important to develop an understanding of the way to listen to them. Michel Chion breaks listening down into three basic listening modes. The most nuanced of the three is a concept of ‘reduced listening’. The concept, originally coined by R. Murray Schafer, is taken one step further, to define noise as something to be observed in and of itself, rather than simply a vehicle for something else. It is something incredibly hard to do, to perceive noise without regard to “any cause, meaning, or effect” (Chion, 50). Yet in an “omnidirectionally” noisy location such as F, the ambiguous nature of noise is able to come out (Chion, 53). At all of the other locations of campus, the sound is recognized and immediately understood as coming from F. Yet at the place itself, in the chaos of sound, all cause, intent, purpose, and meaning is stripped from sound, and people are able to enjoy a unique case of pure noise. Another sound philosopher, John Cage says in an interview on silence, “I don’t need sound to talk to me”. He “loves sounds just as they are” (Cage, 2:41). While all of those locations have their merits, at 11:59 on a Saturday night, there is no more unique a soundscape as the one that comes from Armfield.
Bibliography:
Schafer, R. Murray. "The Soundscape." In The Sound Studies Reader. Edited by Jonathan Sterne, New York, Routledge, 2012 Chion, Michel. "The Three Listening Modes." In The Sound Studies Reader. Edited by Jonathan Sterne, New York, Routledge, 2012. Gross, Daniel A. "This Is Your Brain on Silence." Pocket, getpocket.com/explore/item/this-is-your-brain-on-silence. Accessed 8 Apr. 2019. Guzy, Marinna. "The Sound of Life: What Is a Soundscape?" Folklife, 4 May 2017, folklife.si.edu/talkstory/the-sound-of-life-what-is-a-soundscape. Accessed 8 Apr. 2019. "John Cage about silence." Youtube.com, uploaded by Jdavidm, 14 July 2007, www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y. Accessed 8 Apr. 2019.
