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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2009 10:37:56 GMT
I live pretty much in the heart of the city and just blocks away from the Mississippi,with my windows open most of the year. Needless to say,I'm surrounded by many familiar sounds. Car traffic is not too loud. (unless there are sirens involved) Train traffic is very prevalent. The traffic on the river is always within ear shot,whether it be tug boats,large ships,barges,and fog horns (very faint). Early morning brings the sound of birds and in the evening we can hear birds flying back to where they came from earlier in the day. Whistling ducks in huge flocks,and of course the ever noisy crows. The most intrusive sounds are from the early morning garbage trucks and container(dumpster) removal trucks. For the most part I enjoy the sounds around me. What do you hear where you are?
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Post by livaco on Oct 24, 2009 11:06:19 GMT
I live in a very quiet neighborhood. I hear almost no traffic. In the summer I can hear lots of birds and squirrels, or is it chipmunks? There's some animal that actually becomes (a little) annoying because they're right by the window and make noise nonstop. There are a lot of dogs in our neighborhood. So if, say, someone walks their dog along the sidewalk they will all tell each other about it.
The last neighborhood we lived in it was lots of traffic noise and Mexican music. I liked it at first, but it really got to be too much. We had certain neighbors in particular who would have backyard parties and instead of putting a radio in their yard, would use the radio in their truck parked in the street but turned up as loud as it would go. And it was almost every night.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2009 11:09:53 GMT
I forgot to mention the dogs. We have a pretty large dog population in our neighborhood but gratefully not too much incessant barking. Just the exchange of hellos and alarm barks.
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Post by imec on Oct 24, 2009 13:35:49 GMT
Normally, nothing except the church bells a couple of times a day. At the moment, nothing but f'ing geese! Hundreds of the buggers on the river. They arrive around or after sunset, spend the night and then start buggering off in the morning to feed on the fields for most of the day. And no, they don't sleep quietly; they honk all f'ing night!. They 'll be gone in a couple of weeks.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2009 14:15:23 GMT
At home, I have a lot of big city sirens, just like people who live in NYC. I don't notice them anymore (usually), but just about every visitor makes a remark about them.
Meanwhile, where I am at the moment, I love hearing the (recorded) calls to prayer from all of the mosques. The fact that they are recordings ensures that the calls are melodious and of good quality. If they were done live, I'm sure a lot of them would be unbearable. This said, I absolutely can't hear a thing in my soundproof hotel room. I must go out and take a walk.
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Post by spindrift on Oct 24, 2009 16:39:32 GMT
I live on a street near the cathedral so I am in the centre of town. It is all one-way and I am slightly distant from the main thoroughfare. There are cars and vans driving along the road all day and (not so much) at night. I rarely notice the traffic unless people are having difficulty parking their cars in limited spaces and rev their engines. I can hear siren sounds but they are usually far removed from my immediate vicinity. On Friday and Saturday nights there is always the possibility that drunken youths will shout and stagger their way down our road in the early hours throwing fast food cartons and cans of beer into the road and even breaking car windows, wing mirrors and worst of all, running up and over car bonnets and roofs. If this happens someone calls for the police. Usually they turn up quite quickly. We have rubbish collections on a Wednesday and the rubbish vehicle is very noisy as is the vehicular street sweeper that patrols once a week.
At the back of the house I can hear our resident sparrows, blackbirds, robins, pigeons and doves with an occasional visit from a couple of magpies and crows. Depending on which way the wind is blowing we might hear the fairly distant roar of motorway traffic from the M3; mostly I am unconscious of this drone. I have noticed that in the last couple of years the flights into Southampton airport have increased. Unfortunately their flight path is exactly over the cathedral so we have to put up with aircraft noise - but not all the time...sometimes I don't hear it.
That's pretty much it, apart from the occasional bark of neighbouring dogs.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2009 21:57:56 GMT
In the summer my surrounding area is a loud chorus of crickets, that can be heard above all else. Then there are the birds, and other animals. An occasional vehicle passing by. Regular sound of ATV's and motorbikes, and of course music!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2009 22:08:37 GMT
Oh,the frogs! I forgot about the frogs,and the toads. During mating season because there are 3 ponds on my block,the frogs and toads from early evening into the night are outrageous. As my new neighbor told me when I asked him if they bothered him,he said,"it is a sound one gets used to". (I'll never forget that horrible story Spindrift once told us about what they did to the poor frogs who were disturbing someone's dinner party in Africa.)
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 25, 2009 0:45:53 GMT
I think I wrote about the sounds around me in "local color". It's mostly very quiet where I live, although on weekends I can sometimes hear fiesta music and fireworks here and there in the area below me. I love where I live for the quiet, as I've suffered the situation Livaco describes.
Incidentally ~~ the video feature on a digital camera is a great way to capture ambient sound. If you register with youtube, you can upload your video there.
All in one thread we could hear birds in England, frogs in the southern US, dogs in the midwest, and bells, geese, and crickets in Canada!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2009 9:52:03 GMT
And sirens in Paris,just to jolt us out of our bucolia.
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Post by patricklondon on Oct 25, 2009 10:01:51 GMT
I live near the river in London, and over the entrance to the garage where we have our refuse bins. Once a week I'm woken up by the trucks coming to collect the rubbish, but most commonly there are police or ambulance sirens, occasional aeroplanes, far too noticeable helicopters, sometimes a siren or a heavy marine engine or music from a party boat on the river. And just about now, from Diwali to Guy Fawkes night, fireworks......
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2009 14:45:04 GMT
I do miss Guy Fawkes night. It's was always a big night in England, where I was living. No one's even heard of it here.
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Post by spindrift on Oct 25, 2009 18:26:04 GMT
Casimira - reminding me of that horrible frog story...that man who had the frogs killed - well he treated me cruelly a year or so after that....just shows that someone who is cruel to animals is also cruel to humans!
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Post by imec on Oct 25, 2009 19:50:51 GMT
Incidentally ~~ the video feature on a digital camera is a great way to capture ambient sound. If you register with youtube, you can upload your video there. All in one thread we could hear birds in England, frogs in the southern US, dogs in the midwest, and bells, geese, and crickets in Canada! Here's the geese. Occasionally, they will return from the fields in mid-day to have a swim/rest on the water. I heard a flock arriving a half hour ago so stuck the camera out the bedroom window. The video quality is pathetic, but the purpose was to capture the sound. You'll hear them honking as well as them splash landing on the river in three waves.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2009 20:11:51 GMT
Casimira - reminding me of that horrible frog story...that man who had the frogs killed - well he treated me cruelly a year or so after that....just shows that someone who is cruel to animals is also cruel to humans! I couldn't get that story out of my mind for the longest ,thinking what kind of monster would do such a thing? Glad he's gone from your life. Imec: thanks for the video/audio. Reminds me of my childhood.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2009 20:12:56 GMT
The sound is perfect!
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 26, 2009 1:25:43 GMT
That was impressive, Imec! The splash-landing sounds really gave an idea of how many there are. Thanks!
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Post by tillystar on Oct 26, 2009 9:24:34 GMT
I live just off a very busy main road in London about 5 minutes from a hospital and a fire station so as well as the constant roar of the road there are always sirens going off. I barely notice them, they are just part of the background now. Between our flat and the road are quite a few trees so birds singing usually wakes us up in the summer and they tweet away all day. I love hearing the Green Woodpecker, I was amazed the first time I heard her as she sounds exactly like woody Woodpecker!
Because our flat is set in huge grounds and Wednesday is lawn-mowing day I hear lawnmowers all day as I am at home on Wednesdays as well as the sound of the mini tractors thing driving up and down and the gardeners whistling. We also live 5 minutes from an Army Base and so once or twice a month we get a load of helicopters flying over, who knows where they are flying to or from. I always wonder.
The last 2 nights fireworks have started going off here too.
When I used to live in Sunderland I lived about a 10 minute walk from the sea and I loved lying in bed in the winter listening to the fog horns going off. They would call out to each other all night long and I imagined the beginning of Great Expectations.
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Post by bjd on Oct 26, 2009 14:07:20 GMT
Our house is just one block away from the main street of our suburb, but we don't get much noise because there are houses in between. However, at 5:30 in the morning, one of the neighbours starts her damn diesel car to go to work. It's not cold but she still runs the motor for a while -- it drives me crazy since we sleep with the windows open.
We live on the opposite side of the city to the airport, but the planes land coming around from the south so we have airplane noises all day, starting about 6 am. Not like next to the airport though -- it's not annoying, although the people who live just up the hill behind our place really get a lot of airplane noise.
Otherwise, just bird noises and dogs and the occasional noisy neighbour.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 26, 2009 16:01:55 GMT
Your neighbor is an ignorant cow, Bjd. Diesel cars generally don't need "warming up" even when the weather is cold. Maybe you can get someone to helpfully tell her so.
Tilly, you really have a great array of pleasant people and wildlife sounds. Isn't it amazing how trees in cities amp up the comfort level?
Your lovely mention of the fog horns triggered a memory for me. In the early 70s I lived at the edge of Audubon Park in New Orleans and could hear the lions at night from the upstairs bedroom.
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Post by hwinpp on Oct 27, 2009 4:27:00 GMT
Diesel cars just need a chamber in the engine to warm the diesel before starting the car. Maybe BJD's neighbour is confused.
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Post by bjd on Oct 27, 2009 12:11:59 GMT
It's just not cold enough yet to need any kind of heating of car engines. I think hwinpp is right -- she is just confused.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 27, 2009 14:12:42 GMT
You all are kind.
There is practically a national mania here for "warming up the engine". I've often wondered if the criterion for finally stopping is "neighbor's house completely filled with fumes & she has become homicidal".
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Post by rikita on Oct 29, 2009 21:56:58 GMT
currently i hear the music i am listening to, and a slight sparkling sound from my drink (water with a magnesium tablet i just put into it, which is dissolving now)
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Post by hwinpp on Oct 30, 2009 2:28:08 GMT
One of the office's neighbours died two days ago. Since then we've been hearing Buddhist chants non stop, magnified by tannoy. Today is the last day.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 30, 2009 4:19:09 GMT
(tannoy = ?) Is it a usual 3-day mourning period, HW?
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Post by hwinpp on Oct 30, 2009 6:11:07 GMT
Yes, that's normal. Some shorten it to a day.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2009 11:21:07 GMT
Fog horns for the last 4 mornings. Not too loud though. Rather soothing and melancholy.
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Post by imec on Oct 30, 2009 12:45:45 GMT
I love the sound of foghorns - although when I stayed in this room in San Diego, one in particular was a bit intrusive.
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Post by rikita on Oct 30, 2009 15:50:31 GMT
today my heating is making some noises.
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