andre mount soundblog

On a recent trip to Florida, we went to see some manatees at a “lagoon” just north of Palm Beach. (More info and a pic of one of the manatees we saw here.) They had a little marine museum set up, too, and one of the exhibits had a touch screen and a bunch of old phone receivers. You could pick up the phone, touch a button on the screen, and listen to underwater recordings of various manatee calls, grunts, and sighs. We listened to this particular recording much more than the others.

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I recorded this a while back and can’t remember the exact circumstances, but unless I’m mistaken Otis and I were trying to keep June entertained one afternoon. We took turns hitting the tubs and our plan was a complete success. Here’s a lengthy solo from the young drummer.

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For what has become a yearly tradition, our friends Anicia and Steve drove north and we drove south to meet at Sarah’s parents’ place in Stockbridge for Thanksgiving. As is our wont at such occasions, bottles of wine were opened. For some reason, the corkscrew was very squeaky in this particular bottle.

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Our friends Sean and Lenore, it turns out, have a player piano in their living room. I must have walked past it a dozen times without noticing! The had a party a little while back and Sean brought out the box of piano rolls. He told me to pick one and, music nerd opinion in hand, I trotted over. I was surprised to see “Axel F” (original) was one of the selections! (Previous player piano post here.)

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On a trip to the Berkshires last summer, we came home after dinner one evening to the sound of music echoing across the water. Conducting an investigation down on the dock, we discovered a small flotilla assembled around a pontoon boat with a piano and a singer. I believe the stunt was kind of promotional event for an upcoming concert.

The whole thing seemed a little presumptuous to me, but fortunately there was an equally loud an obnoxious mitigating factor: a gaggle of drunken frat boys, several houses down, had climbed through a window and assembled on the porch roof. They were as loud as the music and the two forces nicely balanced each other out. Add some careful dock shuffling and distracted commentary from Otis regarding a small swarm of evening insects and you had a perfect evening’s entertainment!

Listen for the “WHERE’S THE OPERA?!” right at the beginning and triumphant cheers when the request is fulfilled…

A while back, they dismantled the playground at Thompson Park in Watertown. (It took me and Otis by surprise!) Eventually, they put in a new playground and, despite the splinter-y fun that was to be had on the old structure, this one is way better. (Check it out.)

One of the things they installed was this big spinning globe. Kids can climb inside (it has an upper level too) while other kids stay out to spin it. I would’ve guessed that every kid would just go right in and beg their parents to do the spinning, but was surprised to see that several bigger kids were just dying to take the little kids for a ride! It was awesome.

Several helicopter parents stayed close by. I did too, but only to creepily record some audio…

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This is from a while ago: April 2016. Otis and I were walking back from IGA with Brooke (the constant jingling in the background is her collar/leash). Otis had recently learned about counting, but more importantly had also recently learned about jokes. His first real “joke” is featured prominently in this recording. He thought it was hilarious. I tried in vain to correct him. (In retrospect, the fact that he was telling this joke should’ve been an obvious indication that he knew how to count just fine.)

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I don’t know why, but 2017 was a banner year for the maple trees. Our naturalist/poli-socio-climatologist (I’m not exactly sure what he does for a living… something with acid rain in China…) neighbor later confirmed to me that something it was an environmentally extraordinary year, but I already had my suspicions. For one thing, I noticed that there were tons of maple seeds on the sidewalks, more than usual. I also noticed that they made a popping sound when you stepped on them. (“That’s weird,” I thought, “or maybe I just never noticed it before…?”)

The squirrels definitely knew something was up. There were much feistier than usual. Otis and I had a great time in the back yard catching the helicopters that the squirrels threw down. Here are a couple of them barking at each other, perhaps to stake out their territory in the tree.

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On our day trip to North Adams last summer, when we cranked some cranks to spin some tubes, we also checked out a sound installation under the nearby Route 2 overpass. There’s a speaker under the bridge with some pretty neat sounds coming out of it:

To produce these rolling tones, artists Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger affixed two 16-foot tuning tubes to the guardrail on the north side of the bridge on either side of the overpass. The length of the tubes determines the fundamental tone: a sound wave at such a low pitch is 16 feet long and must be generated (whether for sound art or a pipe organ) with a 16-foot tube. Inside each tube, a microphone is placed at a certain harmonic interval (the 5th in one tube, the 4th in the other). These locations accentuate the harmonic and give a slightly different timbre to the two Cs. (source)

It was ominous.

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Here’s the less peaceful side of having two kids. Sometimes you’ve got everybody in the car, nobody’s happy, and you’re close enough to your destination that it doesn’t make sense to stop. (Sometimes you’re not close, but it doesn’t make sense to stop for other reasons. Doesn’t matter. Kids have amazing crying stamina.)

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