Verano Mexicano: A Soundscape

This summer I had the privilege of traveling to Mexico for five weeks.
While I was there I made numerous recordings of the people and places I experienced using a Marantz solid-state field recorder. It is hard to put into words the feelings evoked by the drone of church bells at a funeral in Tepoztlan the day before a neighborhood fiesta, or the rush of being swept up in a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people chanting their hopes for a better world. It is for this reason I have created a sound collage documenting my experiences in Mexico: to attempt to capture those moments in time and weave them together into a coherent whole.

In this soundscape, entitled ?Verano Mexicano? (Mexican Summer), you will hear the intricate rhythms of a Mexican rainstorm, the historic sounds of the organillo (a crank driven music box), trucks and trains, political chants, car horns, and street vendors hawking their wares. This auditory portrait highlights the socio-political climate of a country during a historically important period, as well as the beauty to found in the banality of everyday sounds.

Thus, I seek to point out that the sounds of a cricket chirping or people laughing are just as important as those sounds that we hear on the radio or on television (such as protesters chanting) that are supposed to be symbolic of the larger cultural/political atmosphere. At the same time, I wish to emphasize the uniqueness of the sounds I experienced, to point out that though it may be just a rainstorm, it is a Mexican rainstorm, with all the qualities and characteristics of a July downpour on the Oaxacan coast. A duality exists between the historically important and sounds of the everyday (which are nonetheless crucial to our existence). I have attempted to incorporate both elements of this dichotomy into my soundscape. Hide full description

This summer I had the privilege of traveling to Mexico for five weeks. While I was there I made numerous recordings of the people and places I experienced using a Marantz solid-state field recorder. It is hard to put into words the feelings evoked by the drone of church bells at a funeral in Tepoztlan the day before a neighborhood fiesta, or the rush of being swept up in a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people chanting their hopes for a better world. It is for this reason I have created a sound collage documenting my experiences in Mexico: to attempt to capture those moments in time and weave them together into a coherent whole. In this soundscape, entitled ?Verano Mexicano? (Mexican Summer), you will hear the intricate rhythms of a Mexican rainstorm, the historic sounds of the... Show full description