Composer R. Murray Schafer died on August 14 and the obituary in the New York times talks a good deal about his thinking and writing, and composing, on the sounds of the environment. The soundscape.
The new academic year has begun and the village of Alfred has filled again with students and their vehicles. There's a house across the street and up a ways which has a sign calling it "Hick House." It also has a coterie of large pickup trucks with their engines set to be way noisier, and smokier, than necessary. One or more of the pickups also have a panoply of horn sounds, including a diesel train which is a bit startling since it sounds like the train is just outside the door. I like trains so it's a bit amusing. So far, I haven't heard it at two in the morning.
Thinking about the noisy trucks and horns after reading the obituary and Schafer's thoughts on how noises change our environment, I wonder how many birds and other wildlife have moved deeper into the woods or off to another area entirely. There was considerably more evidence of wildlife in the village during the early days of the COVID lockdown, a year and a half ago.
Out behind my house, I can hear the creek and birds, and sometimes the rustle of a woodchuck as it whizzes back to the burrow. Not so much on the front porch.
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