Sound Walk

I did my sound walk in my local park (Cunningham Park) in  my neighborhood: Fresh Meadows. In the one hour period, I was able to walk around the park track several times, thus hearing many different sounds in the various locations in the park. Firstly, I noticed birds chirping for the first time in months. As I passed by the first softball field where a team was practicing, there wasa variety of sounds, including softballs hitting players' gloves and the coach organizing the team's metal bats.

As I kept walking, people were running by. I tried to listen to the sound of their shoes hitting the pavement for as long as I could. Focusing on the sound, I feel I was able to hear it for a much longer time than had I not been paying attention to it. The same thing happened when I would pass people who were walking their dogs: I was able to hear the sound of the leash for a longer time than had I not been focusing on it.

One more interesting thing that I noticed was the impact that the sound of the cars had on the feeling of the environment I was in. One part of the park is parallel to the road, while the other is parallel to the deeper parts of the park. When I passed by the part that was next to the road, I felt much less connected to nature than I did when I was on the other side of the park. The sound of the cars had much more of an impact that I would have guessed it would.