Enjoy the Silence
Friday, May 29, 2009
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(Pardesi/flickr)
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Sound Off
Throughout May, Soundcheck presents “Sound Off” a Friday series on the many aspects of noise in music and our lives. The series -- which coincides with “Better Hearing and Speech Month” -- looks at issues like New York’s noisiest neighborhoods, the latest research on iPods and hearing loss, and what happens when noise becomes a musical ingredient.
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Our May series about noise, "Sound Off," concludes with a look at silence. For the past seventeen years, author Anne D. LeClaire has spent two days each month silent. She details the regimen in her book Listening Below the Noise. She explains how practicing silence helps her expand awareness and achieve inner peace.
Comments [4]
I will be scourged for sounding 'Sexist', but I find it a wry chuckle that a WOMAN is writing about her Discovery.
Men have gone into the woods and on fishing trips for ages-- and the women have NEVER understood the fact that a couple of buddies can spend an entire afternoon together and SAY NOTHING. Yet we enjoy companionable silence together. Guys work together in the same room and say nothing all day. And when the day is over-- we feel good.
Women get together and Silence is ANATHEMA. Cluck-Cluck-Cluck, Blah-Blah-Blah ad-infinitum.
So Ms LeClaire. . . Welcome to a Male Secret. We've known this for centuries.
I used to go to the Moma for quiet time. The Rothko rooms calmed me on a both a visual and aural level. But now that entry fees there are so high, I like to go to Greenwood Cemetery. It's incredibly quiet.
I'm highly sensitive to sound, so I spend much of my time wearing earplugs. I enjoy my public time immensely, being on the subway is like watching an excellent indie film. Th earplugs are my cloak of invisibility.
Noise isn't all audio; practicing silence includes turning off the computer, putting down the paper / magazine and getting away from the otherwise constant informational noise.
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