Author Archives: Sara Uehara

Rainy evening in Tokyo

 

Recording setup:
Recorded on iPhone recorder. I stood still and held my phone as I recorded.

About the recording:
This soundscape was recorded in the nearest “main street” from my house. It was a rainy evening, as the sound of cars running on the wet street and raindrops on my umbrella suggests.

Recording setup:
MacBook placed on dining table. Recorded on audacity.

About the recording:
This recording is a typical sound I hear every day as I do my work in the living room. The most significant sound is my dog running around on the floor. Half of the living room has wooden flooring and the other half has a rug; whenever my dog moves around and his nails hit the wooden floor, it makes the sharp clicking sound, whereas when he is on the rug, it makes a duller, blunt sound. The dog growls at 0:23 and his breathing can also be heard intermittently. The footsteps at 0:49 my dad walking down the stairs. The thud at 1:04 is the sound of my dad closing the shelf door. These sounds are what I hear every day and have integrated into my daily lifestyle. Although the sounds are not consistent and rather noisy, I do not find it distracting—probably because I have gotten used to it.

 

 

Recording setup:
Recorded on MacBook audacity. I stood still and held the laptop.

About the recording:
The soundscape was recorded at 8 AM, on a street in front of my house. There are bird calls in the background; the most conspicuous, high pitched bird call is the bohemian waxwing. The black-faced bunting and the oriental turtle dove (common birds in Japan) can also be heard faintly in the background. It is easy to ignore these natural sounds, and this was the first time I have ever tried identifying these chirps. I was surprised by the variety of birds that lived around my neighborhood. This suggests that the bird calls may be considered a keynote in this area, as it is a normal part of our lifestyle. Other than the birds, the soundscape is rather quiet —probably affected by the pandemic. Other audible sounds are the wind and a distant car sound. There was not a significant presence of people based on the recording, but there was a person walking with a steel bucket in a far distance (the metallic sound at 0:15 is when he put the bucket down).

 

 

Tokyo, Japan, 5/6/2020, 11pm


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Recorded right outside my house at night. It was raining throughout the day but it stopped raining a little while ago.

-Sara Uehara