Parades and Kings

By EmerySkolfield

Freesound is not merely a "collaborative database" of audio clips and snips. Freesound is the world around us, a mashing of whistles and chirps and beeping cars, conversation and wind-rustled leaves and shoes scratching on pavement. So often, we hit the mute button. Our brains have a strange ability to zero in on a focal point, blurring the visual stimuli and drowning out the noise. How else to explain not hearing an airplane as it rips through the air 200 feet overhead?

On a sparkling Monday afternoon in St. Petersburg, I attended the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade with my family. As I soaked in the sun and, later, tried to avoid it, I remained consious of sound. A parade, after all, is very much about sound -- old-fashioned fire truck horns, high school drumlines, crowd chatter.

MLK Day has quickly become my favorite day off, and it will always be one of the most important holidays in my house, at least so long as am invited to live there.

For my freesound assignment, I attempted to replicate the sound of a parade. In the endeavor, I mashed the sound of a marching band at a small-town parade with some crowd noise, including the sound of a baby saying, "momma." After all, there are children at parades, and we must assume that some of them, on occcasion, say "momma" to their mommas. My son, Isaiah, is not one of them. Not yet. He's sticking with "dadda" for now, and I can't say that bothers me.

This was an interesting assigment. I think it came together OK. I'm sure I could mash some more sounds, but the ones I chose were already full of assorted sounds. Please take a moment to lay these on top of each other and spent a few minutes at the parade.

During my digging, I found the strike of an Indonesian thumb piano that sounded kind of dope. But it didn't mix well with what I had in mind. Still, check it out if you feel so inclined. I also liked this drumline loop, but couldn't really find a use for it, either.

I was listening to Farrah's freesound experiment and noticed this sound -- a base-bumping beat. I believe it's something a classmate added, but it was really disturbing. They I got to thinking about writing, and how sometimes we use words that really disrupt the flow of our writing. These we should work to avoid. They are distracting and jarring. Yet, sometimes, they are useful, if tension is what we're looking for. Anyway, it's something to certainly think about as we embark on some made writing this semester.

Dialogue

Hey, this is Afram and I thought your tunes (which sound awesome let me add) could use some drums but what I got is better. I got the sound of waves from an ocean crashing down on the shores of a beach. It sounds like drummers from a marching band layen it down on their drums. I think you would like it let me know. The natural sound of waves

Afram: Hey, now it's a parade running alongside the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean. I can vibe with that. Thanks for listening and mashing.

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