Turn the volume output of your phone all the way up, then play the pink noise from the audio player below.
Slowly move the phone towards your opposite hand. Sound is both reflected and absorbed. You can almost mute the playback by pressing the speaker against your hand, and should feel a light tickle from its vibration.
Modulate the white noise by changing the distance of the phone from your hand and its orientation, and by squeezing or spreading your fingers.
Move the phone towards or away from the large stones at the edge of the trail and listen to the tonal shifts that the noise undergoes as it is being reflected by these acoustic barriers.
Insert the phone in the cracks between the bricks of the ruined house. Leave it there and listen to it from a distance.
Think of your device as a torch which emits sound instead of light.
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Turn up the volume on your mobile device to maximum and play the pink noise. Put the phone in your pocket.
As you walk, listen to how the movements of your body and your clothes affect the stability of this rather even sound.
Take the phone out of your pocket and hold it in your hand. Notice how the swing of your arm and hand as you walk affects the reproduced sound.
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Play the pink noise on your mobile device at full volume. Point the phone at a distant object of your choice and walk towards it, stopping when you hear the white noise reflected off it.
Think of your device as a flashlight that emits sound instead of light.
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Place your phone on a stable surface (such as a large rock) and play the pink noise.
Slowly walk away from it and listen to how the sound changes with distance.
Get to the point where you can no longer hear the pink noise, then step back a little. You should be able to hear the sound just barely; think of this point as an acoustic threshold (like a sonic door) that you can go in and out of.
Notice how the other sounds in the environment can sometimes make the pink noise so faint that your perception of it could be real as well as imagined.
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When you are resting, play the pink noise very quietly and listen to it for a while.
Can you hear a distant chatter in it? Or perhaps the murmur of a distant stream?
What does it sound like?
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When you are resting, play the pink noise, adjusting the volume so that it is loud but not annoying.
Listen to how all the sounds in the environment seem to be submerged in it; some are completely overwhelmed, some are slightly masked and others sound filtered.
After a while, abruptly stop the pink noise. Notice how its absence changes the way you hear.
Think of this exercise as a flooded room where the water has drained away and the position of the objects in it has changed.
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This exercise requires two mobile phones. Play sine-wave A on the first and sine-wave B on the second.
Find a surface, such as a large stone, where you can safely place the phones side by side. Move away from them and then around them.
Listen to how the acoustic interference between the two different sine waves produces a slight pulsating vibration. The presence of this sound is entirely relational.
You can slowly move the two devices towards or away from each other to vary the frequency and amplitude of this beat**.
* A sine-wave represents a single frequency with no harmonics. It is considered to be an acoustically pure tone.
** In acoustics, a beat is an interference pattern between two sounds of slightly different frequencies, perceived as a periodic change in volume whose rate is the difference between the two frequencies.
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Turn up the volume on your device and play this audio file. It consists of long silences punctuated by short, deliberately piercing noises.
As you walk, try to listen carefully to the sounds around you, distant and near, environmental and your own, and try to distinguish them.
What were the last sound you heard just before you were disturbed by the noise?
Write them down.
*This exercise is derived from an experiment devised by some neuroscientists who wanted to understand whether people think in words or not. Participants were asked to write down the last word they thought of. Notice how we don’t always hear sounds as a set of separate sonic entities.