Un servizio radiofonico sulla mappa sonora di una città

Atteggiamento, opinione e inferenza

1. a) He realised he could not remember the old ferry hornDopo la sostituzione della sirena del traghetto, si è accorto di non riuscire a ricordarne l'altezza del suono, e questo lo ha spinto a registrare sul serio.
2. d) They matter more than recordings of special eventsDice che quelli ordinari sono i più preziosi, perché chiunque può registrare un festival.
3. b) She found it slightly foolishDice che pensava fosse un po' sciocco e all'inizio era perplessa.
4. c) A child's comment gave her a new way of hearing her shutterUn ragazzino ha detto che il suo otturatore suonava come un drago che si sveglia, e da allora non lo ha più sentito allo stesso modo.
5. d) Sudden loud events have become more common, although the average is similarIl livello medio non è salito molto, ma i picchi sono diventati molto più frequenti.
6. a) It depends too heavily on him aloneTeme di essere un uomo solo con un solo microfono; solo se la città facesse suo il progetto, questo gli sopravvivrebbe.
7. c) To make them notice sounds before they capture themDice che la macchina cattura solo ciò che la persona ha già notato, quindi l'ascolto attento viene prima.
8. b) Paying attention to everyday sounds can preserve a place's characterIl servizio mostra come registrare i suoni ordinari aiuti le persone a notare e conservare ciò che rende distintiva la loro città.

Ascoltare i dettagli

1. six / 6La voce narrante dice che lo fa da sei anni.
2. three / 3Idris dice che la vecchia sirena del traghetto è stata sostituita tre anni fa.
3. four hundred / 400La voce narrante dice che la mappa contiene poco più di quattrocento clip.
4. roofUna delle clip è la pioggia su un tetto di lamiera.
5. dragonIl ragazzino ha paragonato l'otturatore a un drago che si sveglia.
6. ThursdayIl servizio comincia un grigio giovedì mattina.

Narrator: On a grey Thursday morning in the harbour town of Selmouth, a retired electrician named Idris Vane is standing very still beside the fish market, holding a microphone in a fluffy grey cover. He has been doing this for six years. His aim is to build a sound map of the town: hundreds of short recordings, each tied to the place where it was made.

Idris: People think a town looks like something. I'd say it sounds like something, too, and that we only notice when a sound is about to vanish. The old ferry horn was replaced three years ago. Nobody complained, but I went down that week and found I couldn't remember the pitch of the one I'd heard all my life.

Narrator: That loss prompted him to start recording in earnest. The map now holds just over four hundred clips, and local schools use them to teach history. A good few are unremarkable by design: a bus door, a shutter being pulled down, rain on a tin roof.

Idris: The ordinary ones are the most valuable. Anyone can record a festival. It's the Tuesday morning sounds that nobody thinks to keep.

Narrator: Not everyone was convinced. Odile Marsh, a shopkeeper whose shutter features in the collection, admits she was bemused at first.

Odile: I thought it was a bit daft, if I'm honest. Who wants to listen to my shutter? But then a boy from the primary school played it back, and he said it sounded like a dragon waking up. I've never heard it the same way since.

Narrator: The project has a practical side as well. Acoustic researchers are using the recordings to measure how noise has changed along the seafront since the new road opened. Their early finding is that the average level has not risen much, but the peaks, the sudden loud events, have become far more frequent, and those, they suspect, matter more for sleep.

Idris: What worries me is that I'm only one man with one microphone. Were the town to take this on, it would outlast me. At the moment it's a hobby that happens to have grown rather large.

Narrator: He has begun training teenagers to take over, starting with one simple rule: listen for a full minute before you press record. As Idris puts it, the machine only captures what the person has already noticed.