I’m re-reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau, a book that has stuck with me ever since it was handed out down the row in a high school English class. A couple days ago I started in on the section titled, “Sounds,” and was reminded that, “we are in danger of forgetting the language which all things and events speak without metaphor, which is alone copious and standard.”
Unbeknownst to him, Thoreau’s musing coincided with a software update on my mobile phone. After completing the download, I noticed a new feature called, “Voice Memos.” Essentially, it’s an application that turns my phone into a digital recorder. Back in high school, when I was first thumbing through the pages of Thoreau’s pondside notes, I went through a brief period when I carried around a small microcassette recorder for song sketches and ideas. The phase didn’t last long, though, in part because the recorder had a way of turning on in my pocket or backpack, and I often found myself listening to minutes and minutes of sounds from my life, struggling to discern what they actually were. It was strange to hear things I had obviously heard before and not recognize them.
Thoreau implores us to always listen. He writes, “No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert.” He used to spend half a day sitting in his doorway, just watching and listening.
One of these days Pete and I will get around to writing another album, and I’m looking forward to that process. When you write a song, or a poem, or take a photograph, or draw a picture you choose to look at the things around you much more intently. In an effort to start seeing–and hearing–in this way, I’ve taken to recording “memos” of the things around me. Here are the sounds of a young guitar student sight-reading the opening notes of “Abide with Me,” and a pair of flip flops walking down an empty hallway:
Abide with Me
Flip Flops in an Empty Hallway
–Zach
