Dum da dum, dum da dum
rain drops, jangling keys and clattering bikes
I’ve had sound on my mind this week.
I think it started with the first two episodes of Ncuti Gatwa’s new Doctor. I’m a big admirer of RTD, and have loved his use of music so far. The scale, the goblin song, the twist at the end. Loved it. My favourite line in the ‘Devil’s Chord’ episode was when the Doctor mistook the diegetic sound of the theme tune as non-diegetic and said as much in a rare and exciting moment of nearly breaking the fourth wall and definitely self- referencing.
In the sunshine, over the weekend, my husband and I enjoyed a very brief moment together where we just listened to the hens scratching in the dust. On another occasion I arrived home and sat in the sunshine with one of our dogs sleeping nearby: the sound of his breathing is indescribable but absolutely beautiful- I wish I had recorded it.
Then, the rain finally arrived after all those glorious days of warmth and sunshine. On a walk, early this morning, I stopped to listen to the rain falling onto my umbrella and the racket made by a quickly filling and fast flowing brook nearby.
All of this got me reflecting on significant sounds in my life. By chance, I was reminded of the noise of my mum’s keys jangling outside the front door when she returned from her cleaning shift when I was small. Now, at 40, I lie awake listening for my husband jangling his keys as he returns from a long shift. Both of these jangly moments evoke the same feeling: a weight lifting from my shoulders, a lightening in my stomach and the sense that everything is right again.
The sea. Who doesn’t feel instantly soothed by the sound of waves on the shore? If I could bottle a sound (other than that of my children’s’ voices) I think it would be that. What about you?
At work this week, I’ve had a series of paper based mishaps that meant I had the joy of coming up with spur of the moment lessons. Today, I went for descriptive writing using the senses- a classic and underused filler lesson for all English teachers. When I first qualified as a teacher I used to take in bags of leaves and twigs and rustle them in students’ ears while prompting them to write about a walk through the woods. During COVID I told them to listen by the nearest window and list the sounds they could hear. Today, I tied myself in knots showing videos without sound, demanding onomatopoeic phrases and asking for predictions in 6 senses. Danny Macaskill, Jeb Corliss and Alex Honnald.
Clanking. Sloshing. Clattering. Bashing. Wind soaring. Ya know when like yer fingers scrape on rocks, like in climbing.
The lesson was jumbled but it forced them to think, imagine and search for the vocabulary to evoke the sounds that were absent. I was pleased :-)
In The Devils Chord, the doctor used his sonic screwdriver to temporarily stop all sound in an attempt to stall the evil Maestro. The visual and cinemativ effect was stunning. Did you see it? It reminded me of the Strictly Come Dancing moment with Rose Ayling Ellis.
So, sound. If we are lucky enough to experience it clearly and without distortion, it’s perhaps worth remembering what a blummin’ brilliant faculty it is to possess.
I suffer, sometimes, with tinnitus, it is one of the easier-to-deal-with side effects of the cancer treatment I had 5.5 years ago. Maybe a topic for another post. I should tell you about the time I was in hospital and kept asking them to turn the music off- there wasn’t any music- just a lot of morphine.
Anyway, that’s where my head has been this week. Thank you for reading. I’m enjoying Substack again at the moment. Please look at my recommended reads- I really do recommend them.
Rachael x