A Commentary on Privilege in Space Through Sound
by
Cora Rydingsword
The town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts represents a collision between nature and modern upper-middle-class culture. This sound essay explores the emergence of modern-day Great Barrington through transportation. Transportation plays a part in how space is formed and people’s connection and ownership of that space. In The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and Tuning of the World, Schafer speaks to the connection between sound, class, and privilege, noting that privileged areas have less noise because of their ability to relocate noise (Schafer, 1993). Great Barrington is a quiet town except for the traffic that invades Main Street, which lies in a valley between hills full of residential houses embodying the “American Dream”.
Through the intertwining of natural soundscapes from the hiking trails that surround the town with the intimate sounds of walking Main Street, the isolated noises of driving through the town, and the comparison between gas and electric vehicles the soundscape becomes layered and overwhelmingly “owned” by upper-middle-class noises.
In Doing Anthropology Through Sound, Feld speaks of how “bells are part of an acoustic ecology that joins space and time in history” (Feld & Brenneis, 2004, p. 469). Car horns and sirens are like bells signaling change and danger and beckon the future. Great Barrington holds historical significance and has always been up and coming. From being the first town to have street lights and named Smithsonian Magazine’s Best Small Town in America in 2012, present-day Great Barrington’s streets are full of electric cars, coffee shops, and cannabis dispensaries. Great Barrington is a place that holds history and uses this space to push the future.
Aknowledgements
Thank you to Noah Meyerowitz, Silas Balcklow, and Orrin Rydingsword for contributing sound clips.
References
Feld, S., & Brenneis, D. (2004). Doing anthropology in sound. American Ethnologist, 31(4), 461–474. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.2004.31.4.461
Schafer, R. M. (1993). Part Two: The Post- Industrial Soundscape. In The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Destiny Books.