There is much here for me to read further and thank you for posting. But this in particular jumped out at me:
"Sounds we hear every day often fade into the background of our consciousness, while traveling to unfamiliar places transforms what is mundane into something wondrous. While visiting Muslim countries for the first time, I was especially struck by the sound of the muezzins’ call to prayer, often audible from multiple nearby mosques at once. All those within earshot become members of an audible community, a kind of sphere emanating from each minaret. Even for non-believers, the experience of sound in space is powerful in that it is shared in a way that abstract clock-time is not."
I had this experience on my first visit to Morocco in 2016, specifically not so much in Chefchaouen but from just outside, on a little hilltop where locals walk in the evenings, especially younger people with their dates. (Chefchaouen is a progressive town within the Muslim nation.) The sound from the minarets carried with it this natural reverb and it was indeed almost alarmingly beautiful, much more so from this vantage point that our Dar, which sat right under one of the minaret speakers which of course greatly affected our ability to sleep. I "filmed" the sound and now need to go find it.
But on a flip side, I was born in and still visit often (to see my mother) the town of Beverley in Yorkshire, England, where the Minster bells (and indeed those of other churches, including St. Mary's) ring every 15 minutes., and they are loud. SO loud that everyone can sleep through them at night, or the properties around the Minster wouldn't be so expensive. And the sound of the bells on a Sunday morning, announcing service, are more majestic to my ears than the choral music about to commence inside. (I say this as a non-believer who nonetheless brings my mother there when she is capable.) Some of these bells are now automated, but one of my childhood friends was a bell-ringer (at St. Mary's) and it was a position considered every bit as important, and certainly more physical, than being an altar boy or a chorister.
I look forward to leanring more from the rest of the article.
Also I had a very similar experience with 15 minute interval church bells in Colle Sannita in rural Campania, Italy, where I was doing a workshop during Liminaria 2022. I was shocked that the locals seemed to be basically unaware of this fact. They just tuned it out completely. They even rang for 15 minutes straight at 6pm. I ended up doing a public presentation of a piece I made so I made it 15 minutes long and built around the bells, knowing it would inevitably be interrupted. You can hear that here: https://m.soundcloud.com/acloserlisten/ritmi-rurali-suonano-ancora?in=acloserlisten/sets/sound-propositions-podcast#t=6:40
There is much here for me to read further and thank you for posting. But this in particular jumped out at me:
"Sounds we hear every day often fade into the background of our consciousness, while traveling to unfamiliar places transforms what is mundane into something wondrous. While visiting Muslim countries for the first time, I was especially struck by the sound of the muezzins’ call to prayer, often audible from multiple nearby mosques at once. All those within earshot become members of an audible community, a kind of sphere emanating from each minaret. Even for non-believers, the experience of sound in space is powerful in that it is shared in a way that abstract clock-time is not."
I had this experience on my first visit to Morocco in 2016, specifically not so much in Chefchaouen but from just outside, on a little hilltop where locals walk in the evenings, especially younger people with their dates. (Chefchaouen is a progressive town within the Muslim nation.) The sound from the minarets carried with it this natural reverb and it was indeed almost alarmingly beautiful, much more so from this vantage point that our Dar, which sat right under one of the minaret speakers which of course greatly affected our ability to sleep. I "filmed" the sound and now need to go find it.
But on a flip side, I was born in and still visit often (to see my mother) the town of Beverley in Yorkshire, England, where the Minster bells (and indeed those of other churches, including St. Mary's) ring every 15 minutes., and they are loud. SO loud that everyone can sleep through them at night, or the properties around the Minster wouldn't be so expensive. And the sound of the bells on a Sunday morning, announcing service, are more majestic to my ears than the choral music about to commence inside. (I say this as a non-believer who nonetheless brings my mother there when she is capable.) Some of these bells are now automated, but one of my childhood friends was a bell-ringer (at St. Mary's) and it was a position considered every bit as important, and certainly more physical, than being an altar boy or a chorister.
I look forward to leanring more from the rest of the article.
Thanks for reading, Tony, and for sharing your story. You might appreciate this recording I made in Essaouira Morocco during Ramadan.
https://on.soundcloud.com/dxhSB4DYruzecTCx5
Also I had a very similar experience with 15 minute interval church bells in Colle Sannita in rural Campania, Italy, where I was doing a workshop during Liminaria 2022. I was shocked that the locals seemed to be basically unaware of this fact. They just tuned it out completely. They even rang for 15 minutes straight at 6pm. I ended up doing a public presentation of a piece I made so I made it 15 minutes long and built around the bells, knowing it would inevitably be interrupted. You can hear that here: https://m.soundcloud.com/acloserlisten/ritmi-rurali-suonano-ancora?in=acloserlisten/sets/sound-propositions-podcast#t=6:40