A Soundwalk

Apologies if this is up a bit early, but I figured it'd be better safe than sorry uploading this piece. 

A soundwalk in New York City is completely analogous to any soundwalk anywhere else in the world. Unlike other experiments of this variety, New York has a very rich texture to its sound – an industrial, constantly busy quality that’s multi-layered. Perhaps the busiest area for this kind of excursion is Grand Central Terminal and the surrounding blocks. The shuffle of feet is positively rhythmic – every foot stomp is in near perfect synchronization, as if everyone walks at once. The low hum of the trains, even a block away, is audible beneath your feet. Cars are constantly humming, stuck in gridlock. These keynotes are supplanted in New York constantly by sound signals – new information that comes to the forefront. Such sounds include the flyer and survey crowd, flagging down people in hopes for a picked up pamphlet or a minute of time – they are loud and braggart, drawing attention via shouting. Horns blare from the cars, tired of the perpetual gridlock, hoping their loud distractions open up a path. These sounds are all so meaningful to me – having been born and raised in Brooklyn, and spending most of my life walking in Manhattan, these sounds have become the ambience of my childhood. I wish I could act surprised or tell you about my life being altered by some sound I heard on this walk – but it didn’t happen. All that did happen, though, was the simple magic of walking around the city I was born in, to the sounds that were my childhood lullaby.