Why soundscapes, not photographs, are the best way to make your travels memorable

We often hear people describe themselves as “visual” creatures, in that they understand and remember the world around them best through sight. While this may be true for most, the power of sound on a person’s experience, mood and memory cannot be ignored.

There is plenty of research into the connection between sound and memory, particularly music. This connection can be used deliberately, like a mnemonic device — many of us learned our ABCs through song — or inadvertently, like when a particular song takes you back to a favourite holiday.

Words cannot express quite a lot of feelings, whereas a noise or tone or drone or sound, an accordion falling down a staircase, can somehow capture an emotion much better. — John Lydon

But it’s not just music that has this particular effect — sounds of all kinds can acquire emotional memories. The whoosh of the ocean retreating back through the pebbles on a beach in Nice, the early call to prayer of an Islamic mosque, or the sound of an impromptu football match in the square of Siena all have the power to transport you through space and time.

And if you’ve never visited these places before? Such distinctive sounds can give you an instant sense of place, before you even step foot within a country’s borders.

There is a whole subset of traveller, who knowingly or unknowingly, are aural beings. You might be able to spot them through their musical prowess, or by the way they can easily remember someone’s name upon hearing it.

But many of us, even the visual ones, can benefit from the use of sound in storytelling.

Sounds do what photos can’t — they completely immerse you in a place’s atmosphere, leaving your mind to imagine the rest.

Whether it’s creating your own soundscapes to capture your travels, or sharing them with your audience to entice them to follow in your footsteps, sound is a powerful tool to encourage discovery.

How to start creating soundscapes

There are several kinds of soundscapes — some are simple recordings of the atmosphere and surrounding environment, some are sounds recorded in isolation and some are complex compositions, multi-layered recordings that blend sound and music.

Making these tracks need not be stressful or difficult, start simply and build up confidence and skill over time.

Step 1: Learn to listen

It sounds too simple, doesn’t it? You would think that listening is innate, rather than learned. But for many of us, we rely so much on our other senses, that we often forget to listen.

Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don’t have to do anything else. We don’t have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen. — Margaret J. Wheatley

When you’re in a space that you want to capture, take the time to focus your mental energy on the soundscape of that place.

Sit somewhere quietly, close your eyes if you can, and focus on separating the sounds you hear around you into their individual elements.

Pay attention to all the sounds that surround you and how they contribute to the whole.

Keep practising, and you’ll start to notice sounds more instinctively.

Step 2: Analyse your surroundings

Once you’ve immersed yourself in the sounds of a location, it can help to ask yourself the following questions:

• If you were asked to describe the location, what would you say?
• Do you describe the people, the landscape or the surroundings?
• What are the key sounds that relate to what you’re describing?
• Is there a particular sound that would make you remember this place after you leave it?
• Why are these sounds so distinctive?

Answering the above can help to zone in on the key sounds that create a sense of place and help you focus your recordings.

Step 3: Capturing sounds

Sounds can be divided into two categories — natural, and manmade. Some key examples of these are:

Natural

• Wildlife
• Nature (e.g. wind, ocean, trees)
• Fire

Manmade

• Traffic
• Footsteps
• Machines
• Conversation
• Applause

Once you’ve isolated the sounds you want to capture, it’s time to get recording. With many of us owning smartphones, we now have access to a recording device in our pocket.

While it can be hard to isolate particular sounds using a smartphone, the internal microphone is excellent, and is a great first step in starting your collection of soundscapes.

Try to make it a habit to record sounds throughout your day as you’re on the move, taking audio snapshots of things that pique your interest.

Anything can become a musical sound. The wind on telegraph wires is a great sound; get it into your machine and play it and it becomes interesting. — Hans Zimmer

Start with this exercise — create a soundscape that captures the course of your normal day. Sounds could include closing your front door, an approaching train, the ding of an elevator opening, tapping of computer keys at your desk. Creating these audio snippets will help prepare you when there is an interesting day or event worth capturing.

Once you’ve mastered the art of recognising and capturing sounds around you, you can move into using more sophisticated equipment, like portable microphones.

Step 4: Collating and sharing sounds

Once you have your recorded tracks, you can keep them as short clips, or edit them using a program like Garage Band or Audacity, to piece tracks together or layer different sounds.

Upload them online to an audio sharing platform like Soundcloud — from here you can share your soundscape or embed them across the internet.

Want to remember or share where a particular soundscape was made? Use an interactive map like Alpaca to visually attach soundscapes to a map. This will give your sound real-world context and encourage exploration.

While video, photography and the written word all have their benefits in capturing a sense of place, adding the element of sound can give a truly immersive element to your storytelling.

This article is part of Alpaca’s series analysing immersive exploration. For more on how to create more meaningful travel experiences, take a look at our blog or Medium publication.

Looking to create a soundscape map of your own? Create your free map today with Alpaca.