Rain

Thoughts on soundscapes

I was reading Norwegian Wood tonight, but found myself uncomfortable. It was too quiet, I guess. To create some soothing white noise, I put on Boodler, a soundscape generation program. Using a library of samples it creates different sonic environments, like train tracks or rainstorms.

After about ten minutes the storm swirling in my speakers was beginning to pick up. At this point in the program, the wind increases a bit, the thunder occurs every 7-15 seconds instead of 20-35, and the script introduces the LightRain module. The sequence lasts for 7.5-11.5 minutes.

At the same time, I realized that I could just hear the soft patter rain outside my window. I immediately turned off my fake, artificial storm, and threw the windows wide open to better hear the real thing. Almost as soon as I had done so, however, the patter faded slowly down, and was no more. All that was left were the occasional drips on my window fan, cars creating waves in puddles, and a television in the apartment below mine.

So, I restarted my program.