Staircase

by Christian Pichay For my sound walk I wanted to explore the contrast of anthropophony and biophony. It is incredible how much the soundscape can change in such a small area. The area I decided to use was a little set of stairs set next to the art building. This little area is accompanied by some trees and the animals inhabit them. There are always a lot of animals passing through, but there are also usually cars driving by. I decided to record three different spots on the staircase: the bottom, the middle, and the very top of the staircase. The bottom of the staircase is closer to the street where cars pass by. After about 30 seconds of recording, I would switch spots. I noticed that the soundscape changes drastically from throughout the staircase. At the bottom of the staircase, cars are much more prevalent. However, towards the middle and at the top, the only sounds noticeable are the birds and the wind rushing through the leaves. The recording demonstrates some of the contrast that I was looking for.