Taking Sounds 🎤

I hear birds chirping. The wind is blowing softly. The sound of a scooter passing by. I hear myself whispering "This is fascinating" as I approach the amazing statues of Vinh Trang Pagoda in Mỹ Tho, in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam.

I walk closer to one of the bigger statues. The wind keeps on blowing. A soft "gong" sound in the distance. And now the chanting starts.

There's music playing next to the statue. It's a duet of a male and female voice that keeps repeating some kind of chanting. As I recede, the birds keep on chirping, the wind keeps on blowing. And the music starts to fade.

My recording ends with the sound of a loud scooter. This is Vietnam after all.

Taking sounds

Ever since we were introduced to smartphones, all of a sudden every one of us had a camera in their pockets.

A picture says a thousand words. At least, if you believe every tourist ever. Because no matter where you go on this planet, people are taking pictures.

They might post them on social media. They might look at them when they browse through their photo libraries. They might just forget about them. Still, they gotta take that picture.

I believe this world has more to offer than visual stimulation.

At some point on this trip around the world I realized: We don't just carry around a camera in our pockets, but also a microphone.

I recorded the birds in the rain forests of New Zealand, I recorded the waves of the Gulf of Thailand in Vietnam. I recorded the traffic in Ho Chi Minh City.

Why just take a picture if you could also take a sound? 🔊