Dissonant Murmurations

Participants: Alyshea Mo, Beverly Chew, Chen Yi An, Nathaniel Soon, Safiah Noorhimli

Collated by Chen Yi An

Locations: Amsterdam, London, Penang, Prague, Singapore, Sipadan, Taipei, Tulamben

The full version of 'Dissonant Murmurations' can be found in Now & Again: Sound.

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There are sounds all around us, in any shape or form. They are a part of our everyday lives, and very much define the experiences we have. Living in the city, sometimes these noises may become overwhelming — the hustle and bustle of crowds, screeches and honks from the streets and even the countless notifications we get from undisclosed locations in the form of emails and text messages.

I challenge you to take the time and be deliberately conscious of the sounds in your environment; to engage with them for a period of time and to find clarity in moments of discord.

Here are some tasks you could do,

Find an excuse to be alone. Try to be in your own company and with your own thoughts. Bring yourself to places or do activities that could drown out all exterior sounds.

Characterise the sounds. Listen to the noises and voices that pervade an unfamiliar place, and compare them to the sounds of previous cities you’ve inhabited. Give them separate identities through what you feel and where you stand as a part of that environment.

Enjoy the company. Grab a friend and exchange playlists of a similar duration that you think they’d like. Without talking to each other, go out for a walk or do a shared activity, and enjoy each other’s company. Discuss the music.

Stay up late. Spend some time to be immersed in the silence of knowing everyone’s asleep. Take note of what you can hear in that silence, and how that affects your headspace.

Take note of architecture. Stop by different infrastructures designed to elevate or reduce the sounds within its space, i.e. concert halls, museums, cathedrals, tunnels, etc. Spend some time to lose yourself in the acoustics of the space.

Feel free to come up with your own activities.

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Enclosed are a disposable camera and a notebook. Use these materials to document the process of doing these tasks and record your thoughts along the way.

Feel free to record in any way you’d like. Note down the time and date if you can.

01: Alyshea Mo

9th July 2019 @ Borough Produce Cafe, Lower Marsh

I hear but a snippet of what it sounds like on the outside. I am a watcher, I do not contribute to the soundscape of this space. Even the sounds I make are unable to penetrate through the loud laughter and cheers coming out from the pubs, the sirens from the ambulance or the police, the baby waiting in the pram, the children singing with their backpacks walking home, the businessman/woman on the phone walking home — “I’ll see you at home very soon.” I think it feels almost like watching a large television screen and talking/making sounds at it.

New flatmates have moved into this space and I’ve 10 days to move out and sound-wise, even the soundscape of the house has drastically differed. I guess along with my recent realisation of struggling being alone, I enjoyed the sound/noise of the flat when we had guests over and when we cooked and laughed and shouted and these little vibrations bounced off this tiny space created by 4 walls hugged my ears. Some sounds indicated dinner time or that someone has left for school or that someone’s having a hard time in the toilet.

And now, I will never be able to hear these sounds again in the same way that particular individual created it in this particular space at that particular time — like how the keys jiggle to unlock the doors, the way someone spits their toothpaste out into the sink, the way they put on their shoes. And I think it’s quite beautiful in its melancholic way that I will never be able to hear those exact sounds again. And so the space changes because now the keys jiggle in a very different way, the spit of toothpaste hits the sink differently, the shoes stomp the ground strangely. I’ve marked the ending and the beginning of my time now with the difference of familiar sound.

02: Beverly Chew

This is what fills me every FRIDAY MORNING at 9am … the time to pay rent. It’s the same thing I hear every week … “20.08 one day so it’s 141.97 for this week”, “Cash or card ma’am?” The sound of the keyboard tapping away, my card being swiped fills me with ANXIETY & dread. Yet, amidst it all lies a deep sense of gratitude. I’m happy to be here. I always wait for Pavlav (the receptionist) to surprise me with a discount BUT that remains a distant dream.

I went swimming today. Ok no actually I didn’t ... it was too cold. I just stood by the water & dipped my feet into it. The wind was so strong, felt like I was almost swimming in wind. Today made me feel wanted, like both the wind & water were trying to seduce me. What a time to be alive.

Prague
9:30pm
Late night traffic

The cars on the streets remind me of the potential bedbugs crawling on my skin. All I hear is the imaginary rustling … their dirty bodies sinking in my flesh. I AM DISTURBED. Traffic needs to quieten down.

03: Safiah Noorhimli

In the most melancholic soothing melody, the mosque was filled with the chanting of “La-illaha-illalah.” They’re reciting Ratib al-Attas, a litany.

On a breezy Friday evening I found myself at the women’s prayer area of Masjid Sultan.

In the midst of prostration during my maghrib prayer, they started reciting that chant. The entire hall was filled with the reverberations of the amplified voices of the reciters. Suddenly, it was as if I was enveloped by the sounds. It was the most beautiful recitation I’ve ever heard. It was so peaceful. As I fell into sujud and declared submission, it felt as if time ceased to exist. It was like those sound dissonant effects they use in films!! Like that final episode of Prison Break season 3 when Sucre — the sounds just took me to another place and altered my experience of this reality. Sensational.

It’s crazy, but I don’t usually think of sounds in letters (a - z) except for when I have to convey something in arabic. No, I don’t and can’t speak it but I’ve been trying to learn it. In arabic, there’s a letter ق (qaf). To be able to produce the right articulation (of any of the arabic letters in fact), you need to know which part of the mouth the sound comes from. IDK, it’s just fascinating to understand origin of sound and to realise that they eventually manifest into a tool to communicate.

I was in the kitchen earlier making some hummus for myself when a nasty ass cockroach creeps out of nowhere. Thank goodness it was a baby cockroach. I, for one, am not fond of pests of any sort… Anyway, in all my attempts to scare the roach away, I found myself using sound as my mode of defense. First, I screamed, out of shock, then I banged the countertop with a pan — didn’t flinch one bit — then clapped my hands and commanded in a loud voice — like an abusive general — to show off, only to realise it doesn’t perceive sound the same way we do.

04: Nathaniel Soon

05: Chen Yi An

2nd March 2019, 1:28am, Taipei

I think sound can also be interpreted in terms of the way a collective speaks, and by the way they communicate. I watched Green Book in the cinema today and someone’s phone rang. Of course, this is incredibly rude and practically blasphemous, but in Singapore no one would dare point it out. It would’ve been expected of him/her to shut it off. Here, the person was asked — across a few rows — to shut his phone off about 3 seconds into the ringing, accompanied by VERY AUDIBLE tsks and discontent hisses.

The cinema was at Ximending, which is probably one of the most frequented shopping areas in Taipei, so there is literally no room to walk in at night.

Amongst the hustle & bustle, there was a large group of people surrounding a street performer — and for the first time in my life, I heard the crowd CHEERING whenever he did a stunt. Naturally because of the commotion, more people were drawn to the crowd, and more of them added to the noise.

And now I’m back in my room, without music for the first time, and I hear EVERYTHING outside. From a coin drop upstairs, to a cough outside my window, all of it. Funny story — I was hanging up the laundry just now and all of a sudden babies were screaming, their mother started screaming as well and once the dad came in, it had escalated to a full-blown punishment. It IS interesting though because just by these sounds alone — be it asking for someone to shut their phone off, collective cheering or a very emotionally-charged spontaneous reprimanding, I can only ever experience this here. It’s very characteristic of Taiwan as an environment to be hearing these sounds and voices around you.

Someone rang the doorbell shortly after I’ve retreated back to my room amidst the family’s screaming and crying, but I would pretend that I didn’t hear that.

27th April, 9:12pm, Xitou

Last weekend here in Taiwan & came over to Xitou for a getaway — a nature reserve/bamboo forest.

Just came back from a long walk in the forest under a drizzle & it was one of the most relaxing things I’ve done in a long while. I’m particularly very enamoured by the image of a street lamp with its light diffused in the rain, with everything around it shrouded in darkness. If I could visualise how the experience was, paired with the sounds of rain, insects, birds, frogs, & the vast expanse of trees, that would be it. A good way to escape the constant noise of the city — it really affects your mental state as well.

24th February 2019, 12:29am, Taipei

Had a reunion dinner of sorts, with 30+ family members. It was a lot of catching up, “planned” banter, toasts, introductions, and small talk. Was caught in the middle of a lot of conversations overlapping one another; interesting that people perceive this as a proper get-together when it’ll always be interlaced with unspoken tensions and conflicting views hanging in the air. Varying tones and volumes intertwined with the obligation to entertain.