116 Essay #1

Essay #1

The Rural Landscape

Zach Krueger

1. Schafer makes the distinction of hi-fi versus lo-fi by comparing the country-side to a modern city. He describes hi-fi as having a clearly defined depth of sound. Because of its low level of ambient noise, there is a spatial environment in which  foreground and background can coexist. Schafer conveys an interesting sense of reverence for the sound environment for hi-fi areas and laments the lack of the potential of comprehensive listening in low-fi areas. In my own experience, I can confirm that in busy areas I tend to retreat into my own thoughts and block out the wall of lo-fi sound. However, while on a walk with my dog in an open hi-fi area for example, it's easy to let the layers of sound wrap itself around you.

2. Something as trivial as churning butter can become a nostalgic mark in someone's memory, evident from the sentiments described from Schafer. He goes in detail to paint the picture of his childhood living on a farm, as if he stepped into the soundscape of his past and listened again for the first time, "The hand-operated pump . . . now snaps into memory as a sound mark of my youth" (Schafer 48). He describes this sound as having a texture and a personality that still holds a place somewhere in his seldom touched subconscious. There is one specific sound that I can recollect in a similar way. I don't remember specifically where I might have been, but if I delve deep enough into my childhood I can hear the elusive sound of a distant train somewhere over the horizon. There's something nostalgic about the way it hangs suspended in the wide open space it inhabits in my memory. When I hear it again now, it still makes me stop and listen.