By Hildegard Westerkamp

Introduction addressed to the soundwalk participants

Many heartfelt thanks to Lidia Camacho and Perla Olivia Rodriguez Resendiz for organizing this conference, Megalopolis Sonoras/Sound Megalopolis. Many thanks also to everyone else, who assisted them in making such a large event possible. Your hard work allows us all to gather in this gorgeous place, the Fonoteca Nacional, which by the way, was the former residence of Octavio Paz---obviously a place conducive to powerful writing, thought and creative work, a place I am sure, also highly conducive to listening, a quiet oasis in this huge city!

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I am grateful that the organizers decided to open the conference with a soundwalk. What could be more appropriate for a conference on acoustic ecology? Not only is it appropriate for those of us who have just arrived from other places to spend time to listen to this city, to sense the new culture, the new language and the totally new environment. It is also appropriate for all of us at this conference to gather as a listening community and experience the soundscape around us first, before we launch into presentations and talks. In a conference context it is all too easy to forget to pause and listen in such a way. A soundwalk can settle our nervous system. It can create inner calm, which in turn may open up possibilities for unexpected atmospheres of listening throughout the next few days here.

One type of soundwalk is a silent group walk, led along a pre-planned route in order to experience a location’s ambiance and underlying rhythms. All too often the sounds of the environment pass by unnoticed because of our uncanny ability to shut them out. But environmental sound can also be understood as a type of language where each sound and soundscape has its own meanings and expressions. Each environmental sound is like a spoken word: it has something to say to us if we care to listen.

A soundwalk enables its participants to listen actively, to open ears and consciousness to the complex orchestration that the environment is offering to us at all times for our consideration. It is a musical, sonic adventure that reveals the banal to be extraordinary.

The walk will be about one hour long and there will be an opportunity for discussion and exchange when we get back. One important instruction is that we walk in silence and agree not to speak. It is a rare opportunity to be in a group and not speak with anyone.  The main idea is that we open our ears to all sounds. But I also want to invite you to include your own inner sounds and voices, the mental chatter, in your listening. Paying attention to both outer and inner sound worlds can inform us about how we relate to the environment, how we listen, what kind of listeners we are and how we let the soundscape affect us.

We will be a conspicuous group, an unusual social entity. People will notice our large silence. If someone asks what we are doing, just answer that we are on a soundwalk, caminata sonora, and walk on. Equally, if you meet any friends and do not want to pass them in silence, tell them about the walk and explain more later.

The Soundwalk

The route was explored and composed by Samanta Cruz, Janet Fernandez, Erika Lopez and myself. It began on the quiet grounds of the Fonoteca Nacional and continued through the gate onto a narrow street, equally quiet, in which one rhythmical hissing sound became surprisingly noticeable. It sounded like an insect.

But it came from the top of an electrical pole and seemed to be electricity escaping from a faulty connection. A gradual crescendo of traffic noise told us that we were approaching a very busy road. The 70-80 soundwalk participants had to cross this road before entering the large park “Viveros de Coyoacán”.

Once in the park the sound of our clustered footsteps dominated: multiple crunches when we walked on the wider pathways, covered in red gravel, circumventing the entire park and seemed to be the main jogging trail; softer, whispering steps on more sandy trails inside the park; brittle, dry and crisp sounds when we walked diagonally through forested areas. We could hear the warm dry climate under our feet throughout.

Only once did we hear water sounds: sprinklers watering thousands of flower, bush and tree seedlings in a large area of the park near where we had entered.

As we walked deeper into the park the sound of traffic became quieter, a slow decrescendo into a more distant low frequency ambience. Several times when we stood still, an individual car motor without muffler suddenly stuck out of the general ambience and a snaring, revving motorbike could be traced clearly in its speedy travel around the periphery of the park.

Jet airplanes flew over regularly in their approach to the airport. When I had arrived from Vancouver a few days earlier, I was astounded to see our plane descend lower and lower over the city and still, right up to the final approach, there were houses underneath us! I remembered back to a few years ago when we had flown across the city in the same way, but late at night. I wondered then how many of the 20 million inhabitants we had woken up.

At the centre of the park is a large open plaza, sunny and bright. When we arrived there and stopped in a shadowy spot on the side, listening, a group of young men, who had just finished some sort of sports activity, were changing their clothes, talking loudly and in a lively way. Not knowing the language very well, I could not make out any of their words. Once in a while some of them looked curiously at our silent group. Then they left.  Now the plaza was empty except for two men who were rehearsing the movements and interactions of a bullfight. They were far enough away so that we could not hear any sound. One of them played the bull, the other one the bullfighter holding and moving the red cloth. They seemed to be miming a bullfight and doing it especially for us, as if they were presenting an iconic cultural performance. This was a rather surrealistic scene: in its silence it conjured up the soundscape of real bullfights.

Later in the soundwalk, in one of the quietest spots of the park, while we stopped among the trees and listened, Erika Lopez moved through the group, reciting words by Victor Hugo, speaking in Spanish. In counterpoint I spoke English, asking simple questions about the sounds of the environment while also moving among the soundwalkers. Listeners would have heard words and sentences passing by in two languages, fading in and out of earshot, sometimes following their meaning, sometimes hearing nothing but a tone of voice.

At one point we passed a playground. The day before, on Sunday, we had encountered a lively scene of children’s voices and movement. On this day it was silent, but if one listened carefully one could hear yesterday’s voices echoing in one’s mind. A truck was idling nearby in the middle of the park, doing some work. We stopped and listened to its idling rhythm. I wondered whether we could listen so intensely that the driver would be impelled to turn off the motor. Just then the motor stopped! And then a loud metallic bang! Resonating, surprising, delighting many of us in its excellent timing. I had no idea what had caused this sound, thinking that it may have had something to do with the idling truck! Later I heard by chance that one soundwalker had ‘staged’ this event, had thrown a stone against a large metal sheet. Yes, why not? Just as soundwalk participants contribute with the sounds of their footsteps so can they of course contribute with other types of soundmaking activities that suggest themselves during a walk.

On our way back joggers’ footsteps passed us on the red gravel, crunching faster rhythms into the ground. Gradually the traffic sounds increased as we approached the busy road again, leaving the park, crossing the road

and moving down the narrow street towards the Fonoteca Nacional, noticing again that same ‘insect’, the rhythmical hissing sound high up on one of the electrical poles.

An hour had passed and a now much calmer group of soundwalkers returned to the Fonoteca. An interesting exchange ensued in which participants shared their impressions from the walk and highlighted different parts of the walk and their listening experiences.

By the end of it, many of us felt grounded and refreshed, able to listen with open and welcoming ears to the conference speakers.