We’re part of a sound world. What’s changed is our awareness of those sounds... I was reading somewhere that every sound that had ever been made in the earth’s atmosphere still exists somewhere no matter how faint the frequencies are, and if we just had the right equipment we could still hear... Shakespeare himself playing the ghost in Hamlet. And I asked myself: are the sounds of the past gone forever? (Bruce Smith)
Middle Watchbury farm, Barford, Warwickshire
Why were the ears so important [to Elizabethans]? Why was sound so important? Because it was a way of addressing the soul, a way of the external world entering the internal world of the individual. (Anthony Rooley)
Kenilworth Castle, Kenilworth, Warwickshire.
There is an aural culture, and how has that aural culture changed? Obviously we don’t have recordings... but some of the [historical] descriptions are very evocative, and you do get a sense of it. You can go to some villages today and discover elements that probably haven’t changed much... and you can try to recreate it if some of the artifacts, like bells or mills, are still there. (Barry Truax)
