Sonically capturing the Sumatran Soundscape
When going on trips, most people bring back photographs to remember their experience by. For me, I'm growing more and more interested in capturing the sonic aspect of my experiences, an aspect which is often forgotten. We often forget how big and important a role sound plays in our life. Here I speak of sound as referring to really anything you can hear, from the raw sounds - of the thick and dense marketplace and the sparse almost silent suspension from all the waiting during bird watching, to actual conversations - be it candid witty comments, jokes and puns or information and interviews of people like Ari, Rio and Darma, to actual music from the endless group jamming sessions with Ramses and Febo as we exchanged and learnt each other's music.
It's very intriguing to me how through sound, you can see. Sometimes you don't always need photographs to remember. Now, when I replay my archive of sounds, through just listening, I can remember what that sound looked like.
This year, I came prepared. I remember how upset I felt after OSL, after hearing the recordings of music sung by the locals at Cabin 2 through my low-fi nokia handphone. Using the school's edirol sound recorder proved to be very useful, not only in capturing singing but speech as well. More than often, it is what someone says to us, perhaps a certain sentence or phrase or saying, that makes us think and changes us a little bit inside. Indeed, there were so many insightful and meaningful conversations held with the various people we met during this trip, and while I didn't record all conversations (because quite frankly, that would pretty much be an invasion of privacy if I were to whip out the edirol to record every word down), what this experience did teach me was how I really shouldn't take any moment for granted. I retrieved this passage from my journal which I wrote on the 7th night at Cabin 2:
"What i have learnt from this GPS, if there is one (out of the many) points learnt, is that I should always remember to treasure each moment. Treasure each moment and absorb it all, as if it were all edirol-standard and photo-worthy. You never know when you will have this moment again so treasure it - not as if it were your last - I hate that expression (of how you should live like it is your last day on earth). I think you should live each moment as if it were your first. You have not experienced this moment in this way before, in this circumstance, with these people and it is a first time for everything."
And adding on, I think that if you were to treat each moment as if it were your first time (no matter how many thousand times you have done it), doesn't it make it so much more exciting? :)
At the same time, despite having recorded over 300 sounds, this experience has also taught me to listen. I was having a conversation with Becky on a similar topic, about how if you were to come across a beautiful picturesque scene, sometimes the first thing you should do may not necessarily be to whip out your camera and snap away. Instead, you might want to consider stopping to look, admire and take in that scene with your own eyes, not through the lens of a piece of machinery.
While documenting a moment is important and very much treasured especially when one feels nostalgic, it is also equally, in fact, more important to live that moment. With reference to sound recordings, there are many times when I slap my forehead and mutter on about 'how stupid it was of me to miss the opportunity to record that moment'. But when I think about it, what is more important is that I have lived that sound and I can remember how it made me feel. And this is really one of the most important lessons that I have learnt during GPS; the importance of living in the moment and being fully aware in the present.
And I also feel that I can link all this back to my work back at school - the whole mentality and misconception that "it's okay not to give my all in class because I can always copy from the board and read the notes at home, and make sense of all of this later". Perhaps the reason why I kept on thinking that i never had enough time to do work before GPS was really simply due to this misconception, that I can read the notes at home instead (similar to the act of listening to conversations recorded without actually listening to the speakers when I'm actually with them).
So, as strange as it seems, the practice of recording all these sounds has actually highlighted the importance of being in the moment, sharpening my ears to pick up sounds that, though initially almost regarded as "background noise" and "just talking", start to sound like experiences full of emotion.
Link to hear just a couple of songs recorded, including my 20minute sound montage summarising the GPS experience:
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