The Music

by Matthew Herbert

  All the people reaching land

  All the people coming up for air

  All the new babies

  All the keys in doors to new houses

  All the perfect presents being opened

  All the traffic lights turning green

  All the people throwing a stick for their dog

  All the people laughing at different jokes

  All the champagne pops

  All the needles on all the records

  All the people sinking into hot baths after a long day

  All the people on their knees smiling with their ear to the ground

  All the people listening to someone else about to tell a story

  All the people taking a bite of a piece of ripe, fresh fruit they just picked from a tree

  All the children on roller skates

  All the adults about to go out into the cold, putting on a warm coat

  All the children in slavery suddenly free

  All the curtains going up in theatres

  All the plants growing in unlikely places

  Everyone who’s getting paid properly for their time and work waking up

  Everyone who is just about to win something amazing hearing a knock at the door

  Everyone stepping onto a fairground ride

  All the actors walking on stage

  Everyone making a meal for someone else at home

  Every person who escaped on foot from the cruel state apparatus of a tyrant

  Every campfire catching

  All the people humming nonsense under their breath

  Every child making it across a road safely

  All the caramel bubbling

  Every person who got through a day without a racist incident putting on a kettle

  All the bands about to play the first note of a gig

  All the kisses of lovers

  All the wild applause and cheering happening right now

  All the tea pickers in China having a day off

  All the people being pulled alive from the sea

  All the people going on holiday

  All the people held unjustly being released from prison

  All the high fives with children

  All the hurdles cleared, ditches jumped, javelins thrown

  All the items just collected in lost property

  All the people reunited at airports holding each other tightly

  All the people about to dive into a pool

  All the pets meeting their owners at the door

  All the removals lorries pulling into a new drive

  All the gymnasts landing a complicated trick

  All the women graduating from university

  All the subsistence farmers collecting a bumper harvest

  All the skateboarders not falling off

  All the people spotting a rare bird

  All the orgasms

  Everyone on a plane to meet a new grandchild

  Everyone buying their first history book

  Everyone loading a DVD into a machine

  Everyone casting their vote

  Every person standing in front of a bulldozer

  Everyone signed off by a doctor

  Everyone paying off debts

  Every murderer caught

  Every unjust lawsuit suddenly thrown out

  Everyone sitting down to dinner with the love of their life

  Every peaceful gathering of a democratic movement

  Every woman in danger making it to a refuge

  Everyone poor finding a big envelope of cash

  Everyone tired falling asleep

  Everyone standing up in solidarity

  Every nuclear weapon being dismantled

  Every set of twins reunited after years apart

  Everyone pressing ‘play’ on their first piece of finished recorded music

  Every plane landing

  Every handshake between new friends

  Every glass of clean water being poured

  Every doorbell with a joyful surprise on the other side of the door

  Everyone reaching the top of a mountain

  Everyone making it through security

  Everyone with an umbrella putting it up as it starts to rain

  Anyone hungry about to eat

  All the people getting a job they really wanted

  Every bunch of flowers handed over

  Every skier setting off

  Every zip of every tent

  All the rattling of unused guns

  All the people finally on their way home

  Every despot in hiding or on the run

  Everyone about to play an instrument

  Everyone’s heartbeat pounding in unison

  Everyone about to break out into song

  Everyone moving onto the dance floor

  Everyone running towards each other

  Everyone running towards each other

  Everyone running towards each other

  The sound of everyone running towards each other

  12.

  Diminuendo

  The sound of an object leaving the earth. The sound of the friction between the atmosphere and the earth as it spins. The sound of a dense, collapsing mass as it hurtles past. The sound of a body breaking up into its constituent parts. The impossible sound of solar winds. The sound of a continuous bombardment of particles. The sound of gravity hurling a distant planet round a distant sun. The sound of the distortion at the edges of dust. The sound of black holes collapsing. The sound of light as it passes through virgin space. The sound of cells multiplying at dizzying speeds. The sound of dark energy expanding. All the shuddering of elements. The sound of an explosion.

  Sounds the supporters heard

  as they were pledging to

  help publish this book

  The hum of air conditioning, the ticking of a wall clock, typing sounds on my laptop, inner murmur of my anxieties and insecurities about an upcoming performance and about life in general, air conditioning, speaker explaining 3D printing methods (bit of an echo), shuffling and the general sound of people being quiet. Metal chairs being shifted around, children sounding out words, occasional beeps by ATM machines and cash registers, birds that accidentally flew into the building panic-chirping as they try to figure out how to escape, a fountain, the hum of invisible air conditioners, gangs of college students and aspiring novelists seated around me turning pages quietly, the sounds of the mobile phone used by a lone medical worker dressed in his scrubs. Every sound echoes in the building because of all the metal and glass, so the distant sounds cannot be distinguished at times. It’s all very three dimensional. The crackle of my old plastic water bottle as I take a long drink, the slight vibration and tap of my phone keyboard and the distant echo of voices two floors below me as they make their way up the disabled lift shaft. Occasional wind bursts, rattling leaves in the treetops. Sunbathing neighbour turning pages in a magazine. Paul Kalkbrenner beats and aeroplane noise. The fan on my computer. In the distance, a car. (It might be a car.) The JMZ train, air conditioner, street traffic, my legs shifting around as I lay in bed reading, a construction site, salsa and reggaeton. I hear now the tic tac and the clock of my ancient watch at the wall of my veranda and a car from far away, a documentary on the sea, so crashing waves, and passing trains, and my wife typing, the hum of machines (refrigerator, laptop fan), bird chirps, crickets, tree leaves rustled by the wind, boat engines from a distance, an extractor fan humming while old pipes refill a cistern, distant traffic drowned by intermittent vehicles and muted discussions passing by, heavy breathing, chuckling and gentle tapping on phones, interspersed by the occasional fart, cat litter being cleaned, city humming, hard disc rolling, computer fans working, keyboard being u
sed, I can hear the sound of people walking on the beach, talking with one ear and the muffled sound of water breaking on the shore with the other, I am laying down on a beach in Spain, seagulls and tinnitus, the fan of my laptop, my cervical vertebrae, a bus passing, the clock of the city hall (two o’clock), a motorbike screaming down the street, the water tank dripping in the loft above me and a child singing in a garden across the way, the sound of my hands on this keyboard, I can hear voices of my little sons, they are playing at the swimming pool, it is the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard, digital squirrels leaking from the attic, my own typing, a blend of laptop fan, remote noises of cars going by (indirectly, being reflected from the other side of the building) and light wind in an otherwise very quiet surrounding, myself typing, computer fan, birds singing, distant road noises, Barry Stoller’s Match of the Day theme performed by an ice-cream van, accompanied by passing car bass and the ever-present whir of my laptop fan, with my right ear I can hear the muffled rumble of traffic on the A444 as it passes by the front of my house, along with the vague rattling of the combine harvester in the field opposite, my left ear is being treated to the low-pitched whine and running water of the washing machine, the scrape of brushstrokes as my newly graduated stepson works on his illustration portfolio, the occasional raucous call of next-door-but-one’s peacock and the sound of some sort of power tool in the goat field and suddenly a skein of geese are honking above, low, constant whirring of a dehumidifier upstairs, occasional vehicles passing on the road outside the window, my wife scratching her arm (muffled by a dressing gown) on the couch next to me, my daughter laughing at unintelligible American voices on YouTube from the next room, I can hear the sound of my fingers hitting the keyboard in the empty living room, the tiny drone from the fan inside my laptop, muffled music playing inside a car waiting at the traffic light. The rattling sound of the bus’s engine stopping right in front of my apartment, horns, bells from the bus, the tinnitus hissing in my left ear, the refrigerator purring in the kitchen, my neighbour’s footsteps up above, it all sounds very loud and busy, but it’s actually a very quiet Saturday evening, the neighbours coming up the communal stairwell, the rain against the window, cars and scooters driving on wet roads, and the hum of my crappy record player, the whirr of my desk fan, the hum of my PC and the occasional rumble as a late-night motorist crosses the bridge over the lake, computer noise, mouse clicks, keyboard key press, fan spinning, beeps, cable plug in, in and out, one cat purring, one laptop humming, two clocks ticking almost exactly half a second apart, a hard disk spinning, the sound of a helicopter passing overhead and a police car’s siren on a nearby street, probably in the aftermath of a day charged with tension between police, right-wing hooligans whose ‘March of the Patriots’ had been declared too risky and therefore cancelled by the city, and the left-wing counter-protesters who had gathered nevertheless, as I write this the sound of fireworks, celebrating another one of our city’s touristic events, this time a parade of cruise ships in the local harbour, my dog crunching and grinding a bone in his bed while traffic whizzes by outside, Channel 4 programme on TV about OCD cleaners facing down their demons, rib-eye steak, mushrooms, tomatoes, onions and Marsala cooking on the hob, poorly maintained sash windows rattling, foxes in the garden making blood-curdling sounds (probably mating), highlights of an England v Pakistan test match playing in the other room, iPhone 6 Plus key tones as I type, loud snapping in my head as I bite through my own fingernail, a faint clock ticking, a motorbike passing outside, creaks, the wind in trees outside, an aeroplane overhead, after taking off from Heathrow moments earlier; the occasional hammer-tap of Jeff (or is it Geoff?) fixing the front bedroom window; the yelp of a dog and the wind stirring autumn leaves, another plane, regular as clockwork, the DVD player is humming ever so slightly, my phone keys are tapping with every letter I write, my tummy just gurgled with hunger, something is happening outside – maybe a lawn mower in the distance or a gentle stream of traffic, a plane just flew overhead but a little way away as it wasn’t very loud, the fridge humming, a small dog barking, Kevin McCloud discussing the building of a floating house, the gentle whooshing hum of a dishwasher, people discussing projects in hushed tones and Lou Reed’s ‘Perfect Day’ playing faintly on the office stereo, the background hum of an air-conditioning unit, office colleagues talking, typing (via computer keyboards), a coin being dropped, the ping of a Blackberry, general background electronic hum, telephone hold music, droning monotonous business conversation and many hands typing, steam whooshing, ladies laughing, teaspoons clipping, the dull roar of a busy road, the jazzy, snazzy blur of background radio, creaky floorboards, squeaky hinges, dogs barking, rowdy mopeds, the dull hum of the M3, the radio playing some music, a plane flying overhead and my son playing with his toys. When it is quiet, and I am alone, after a busy and noisy day, I can sit and actually hear the rhythms of my body, the air in my lungs going in and out, the pumping of blood in and out of my heart. This, combined with tinnitus, used to frighten me, and keep me awake for hours. I then learned to accept this, and now I do acknowledge that this is a part of who I am – a deaf adult, not flawed, not even disabled really, just deaf, just Sebastian, what can I hear right now? I am in an open office at work. Everybody has gone home for their Christmas holidays. I am alone. It is bliss. The sound of the road in front of my office, a techno-like sound of a defective air conditioner in the office (I recorded it, it is really cool). DJ Sprinkles – house music is a controllable desire you can own, typing of keys on the computer, cars on Via Venezia outside the window, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong – ‘Learnin’ the Blues’, Mary Halvorson playing ‘Sadness’ by Ornette Coleman, the thud of crushing anxiety and the radiators humming with comforting warmth. My nails are too long, I am currently wearing the headphones I always wear when working on my laptop. They have active noise cancellation and as I type this I don’t have any music playing so all I hear is the raspy thud of my heartbeat in my ears, birdsong, heavy rain barrelling down hard onto my office’s tin roof, co-worker talking on the phone in German: ‘… Ich habe jetzt schriftlich nichts dafür bekommen, aber ihren laptop. Ich gehe davon aus, daß alles stattfindet …’ Footsteps from the floor above, the fan of my notebook, servers humming, numerous air-conditioning units whirring, a slight ringing, and laptop keys (obviously), air vibration, typing keyboard clicks, sounds of my MacBook Pro computer, birds singing and road noise Chaleur Humaine by Christine and the Queens. I am deaf, so, why did I pledge to help you with your book? Speech is distorted. Music is unpleasant so I prefer to not listen to it. I wear hearing aids but these amplify everything indiscriminately, so I often leave these in, but switched off, more as a visual aid when I am in a situation where those I interact with need to know that I am deaf. Otherwise, when alone, I don’t wear them at all. This is bliss.

  Acknowledgements

  Matthew would like to thank the people below who may regularly have made one of the following noises:

  A pair of clogs on wide floorboards, some constant whistling or singing, odd gurgles of concentration, driving noises in the background of a broken conversation, the snapping of a Rich Tea biscuit in half in Exeter, the stroking of a small wiry beard, two people laughing near to Aberdeen station, the prising open of an oyster in June, standing by a roundabout in Broadstairs, cleaning a Saab in Berlin, buying U-Bahn tickets, the throwing of a log on a fire in Whitstable, the huddling round a boiling kettle in Wharf Road. And thank you to all the people who so kindly supported this book.

  Glossary

  4/4 – common time signature in Western music denoting four beats to each bar

  AM (amplitude modulation) – type of radio signal

  audio spectrum – range of sonic frequencies

  binaural recording – recording made with two microphones, to simulate the precise audio image heard by human ears

  boundary-type microphone – omni-directional microphone mounted on a flat surface

  bpm – beats per minute


  CDR – CD that can be recorded to on a one-time basis