The conductor at Brooklyn Bridge

I want to share my semester in New York in a way that captures what it means to live in a different place. I considered the usual tropes of experience sharing—what I’m eating, what I’m doing and what I’m seeing. I thought if I could share what I’m hearing, I might capture New York beyond the one-dollar hot dog stands or the crowded subways. I spent an afternoon listening and recording the soundscape of the Brooklyn Promenade under the Brooklyn Bridge.

The soundscape is not constant. It’s characterized by sound moving in and out, waning and waxing on arrhythmic beats and finally after a sufficient period molding into a vague auditory pattern. I arrive under the Brooklyn Bridge at the peak of the oscillating noise. A boat’s triple honk, a helicopter whipping air and rush hour wheels grinding pavement create an uncanny cacophony of modern transportation.

The motorboat fights against the water, every spurt of her engine a loud cry against the resistance; the water bashing her sides with indignation. Sirens in the background work their way across Brooklyn Bridge, at first discredited as background noise, but eventually demanding the Promenade’s attention. The boats and the sirens impose their sounds on the area with no respect for each other. Their intentions are so vastly different that they can produce egregious noise without any attempt to work together. Why would they?

The noises accelerate in their intensity, accumulating tension in my focused ears, driving me into auditory insanity, before an invisible conductor lifts his baton for silence. Then there is only the metal tang of a dock bobbing in the water. The lull of noise feels needed and the soundscape had sped up to slow down.

When the abrasive noise of modern machinery doesn’t intimidate human voices, the talkers take center stage. Unlike the boats and the sirens, the human voices alternate in and out, working around each other. In most cases, people talk timidly, standardizing their volume with the surrounding group. As an orchestra member may keep his tune by the musician next to him, so do pedestrians adjust their voices to keep pace with the crowd. But human sound is not uniform. Joyful laughs from one group elevate above the monotone pitch of the multitude. Coughs and laughs hit unique notes that hang above or below the normal soundscape like a seldom-used trombone or timely flute. I likened the abrupt laughter to the sensation we have when it seems an orchestra section has gone rogue from the symphony but know undoubtedly it was deliberate.

Children bring less consistency to the soundscape, with a persistent whine or infantile shriek. Children will even pull their parents out of harmony, cajoling encouragement for good behavior or demanding yells of discipline. Yet children still find the beat of other children. Even kids beholden to different languages match rhythm in their whines, and with the languages stripped of their meaning, these sounds cut to universal truths.

A new sound enters my awareness. The sound of my heartbeat when I think I’ve lost my wallet. The noises crash around me, suddenly out of sync. However, moments later I find my wallet and the sounds return to equilibrium. I am self-conscious. I hear myself typing notes.

I listen to my recording of the soundscape, and I realize there is no invisible conductor. I am the conductor. I am the focal point of every sound I hear, and every noise must past through my perspective and, ultimately, my judgment. The words I hear depend on how close the speakers come to me. The light splatter of footsteps and strollers that my eyes could perceive the sound of disappear when I listen to the recording. English words grow crisper, but helicopters, sirens, cars, boats, water blend together into background. Background! The soundscape has been reduced to the sound of voices and the vague humming of noise. But cutting through all of that, beating out of every recorded moment is my typing. I decide what is sound and what is noise.