Silent Theft & Daredevil's Ear

Plus: quiet(er) construction, birds that change their tune, and why pets watch 'Flow'

Dear Fellow Listeners,

This Week in Sound is a newsletter about the role sound plays in culture, technology, design, politics, science, ecology, interfaces, business, storytelling, warfare, art, society, and anywhere else it might resonate. My name is Marc Weidenbaum. I live in San Francisco and at Disquiet.com.

Some of this week’s topics:

▰ a silent theft event in Tokyo
▰ why birds change their songs
▰ heightened hearing in Marvel’s Daredevil
▰ why pets watch an Oscar-winner

The This Week in Sound newsletter also includes, as a thank-you to paid subscribers, Listening Post issues consisting of annotated recommendations of ambient (and adjacent) music. This past week’s Listening Post was a round-up of four contemporary takes on three Arvo Pärt compositions from the 1970s.

Your support of This Week in Sound is appreciated, as are sound-related observations, anecdotes, and links from your own life and work. There’s substantial long-form writing I’ve committed to, with more planned. If issues of This Week in Sound go missing, that is why.

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Frame by Frame

The illustrator Hannes Pasqualini and I revived our 2020 comics series in late December 2024 with a “Fireworks”-themed entry just in advance of the new year. We also gave the series a name, Frame by Frame. “Window,” this week’s Frame by Frame episode, shown above, is the fifth of the new phase, bringing the total to just shy of a dozen. Another will appear in a couple weeks. We plan to do two a month throughout 2025. A full index of Frame by Frame comics appears at disquiet.com/fxf:

And check out more of Hannes’s own work at hannes.papernoise.net.

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On the Line

Some favorite recent phrases

▰ Tap Dance:

Dance artists often spout rhythmic medleys of noises and counts during classes and rehearsals. In a wordless art that lacks a widely used form of written notation, these sounds, poetic and onomatopoeic, are strikingly efficient at conveying both what the steps are and how they should be performed. It’s an improvised language that can capture choreography’s cadence, texture and feel.

That is Margaret Fuhrer in the New York Times on the sounds of choreography.

. . .

▰ Heart Beat:

The silence, the thoughts / that come with it, the sinking / suspicion that something more / is wrong with me than anyone / knows, including myself, including / the doctor who hooked me up / to the EKG machine

That is the opening of a poem, “What Am I Afraid Of?” by Sasha Debevec-McKenney, in The New Yorker.

. . .

▰ Backing Track:

I always thought, if the acting thing didn’t work out, which it still might not, I would love to be a Foley artist.

That is Cate Blanchett speaking to The Guardian’s Eva Wiseman. (Found via Peter Albrechtsen.)

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Sound Ledger

Audio culture by the numbers

100,000: Number of songs in a study of bird song evolution.

21,000: Number of hours of audio in the bird song study.

18: Percent of the (human) population that may suffer from misophonia (a significant adverse reaction to certain sounds),

Sources: bird song (npr.org), misophonia (nautil.us).

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The Daredevil’s Ear

Super-heroic acts of listening

At the 5:53 mark in the first episode of Marvel’s new Daredevil TV series, Daredevil: Born Again, Foggy Nelson has stepped outside a bar to take a phone call.

Foggy is a business associate of both Matt Murdoch, aka Daredevil, and Karen Page, who both remain inside the bar. Moments earlier, Foggy was flirting with a district attorney. Murdoch listened in on their conversation and relayed what he heard to Page, whose concern for Foggy resembles that of a teasing older sister. The DA is, we’re informed by Page, out of Foggy’s league.

Murdoch could hear what Foggy and the DA, named Kirsten McDuffie, said, while Page could not, thanks to his superpowers. This is a Marvel TV show; exceptional hearing balances out Murdoch’s complete blindness. That hearing, after Foggy exits the bar, extends through the wall. As Murdoch continues to eavesdrop, the ambient noise drops away and a circle, like a reflection on the camera lens, appears right atop his ear. The circle carries clear meaning: Murdoch is listening even more intently. Things have gotten serious. The camera plays with depth of field, and we follow it, which is to say we follow Murdoch’s ear, from inside the bar to outside, where Foggy is taking his call.

A cut then takes us somewhere else. We’re inside now, at the door of an apartment, where someone named Benny, whom Foggy was talking to on the phone, is in hiding. The camera focuses on a fly circling a bare bulb, and the microphone does, as well. The show’s audio emphasizes the sound of the fly, which might suggest that Murdoch or his superhero alter ego, Daredevil, has entered the apartment, except we already know it’s someone else. If you’ve seen the early Daredevil show and noticed the circular pattern on the individual’s glove, you known who it is: the villain who goes by Bullseye. Bullseye has used a bent paperclip to pick the door’s lock. With a whir, the fly is stuck to the wall, pinned by the paperclip.

As all this happens, both Foggy and Murdoch listen in — Foggy, helpless on the sidewalk, interpreting the sounds for Page; Murdoch, who has put on his Daredevil costume, thanks to that specialized hearing.

The first episode of Daredevil: Born Again does an enormous amount with the hero’s hearing, highlighting what a Marvel is capable of when it elects to focus on the details. I won’t be recapping all the episodes, but I did want to annotate some of the wealth of sonic signatures in this first one — and if other key moments arise as the series unfolds in the coming weeks, I may summarize them. As I type this, a third episode is waiting for me to finish this newsletter (and dinner).

▰ The position of Bullseye’s circular scope parallels the location of the “lens circle” earlier around Murdoch’s ear.

▰ The loudness of Foggy’s heartbeat is exaggerated after he’s shot by Bullseye, and the heartbeat slows over the course of a welcomingly long fight, until finally Foggy is dead.

▰ During the fight between Daredevil and Bullseye, the camera moves forward out of the bar and then back, as if the fight has stopped, except it hasn’t; we’re merely seeing what Daredevil’s ear is focused on.

▰ As Daredevil proceeds up a staircase after Bullseye, we hear still Karen talking to Foggy out front. This is a traditional combination of simultaneous scenes, a standard filmmaking technique, switched up, because what we’re hearing is what Daredevil is hearing.

▰ When Foggy’s heart stops, Daredevil casually pushes the subdued Bullseye off the roof where they had been fighting. The body lands a few feet behind Karen, who is still on the sidewalk, leaning over Foggy’s body. She responds with shock to the thud, something she has heard but hasn’t seen, putting her in a situation not unlike Murdoch’s. She initially thinks she has lost two friends this evening — until she checks, she fears it may be Murdoch bleeding out on the ground, not Bullseye.

▰ Murdoch in his apartment, a year after Foggy’s death, hears the voice of his nemesis, the Kingpin, aka Wilson Fisk. Amid the noise of city life, he has, by instinct, homed in on someone else’s radio or television. Only then does he turn off his own stereo system and tune into Fisk’s announcement: a run for mayor of New York City.

▰ As Murdoch absorbs the gravitas of Fisk’s announcement, we hear the smoke alarm that goes off due to his dinner now burning on the stove. Of course, he is attentive to the more dire alarm of Fisk’s mayoral run.

▰ Finally, for now, there is the moment when Murdoch appears outside an event Fisk has attended. At first, we just see Fisk and hear the noise of his loud fanbase cheering him. Then Fisk is directed, by a political aide, to Murdoch, still off-screen. The street goes quiet, not because the crowd has shut up, but because Murdoch has so focused Fisk’s attention. It’s an especially powerful moment, given how it attributes to Fisk’s focus on Murdoch a clear parallel of how Murdoch experienced Foggy’s death earlier.

▰ And one critique: A later face-to-face meet-up over coffee between Murdoch and Fisk at a diner earns its nod to the great scene between Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro in Michael Mann’s 1995 film, Heat. The only thing I didn’t get about it — as in a scene earlier between Page and Murdoch after Bullseye is sentenced to life in prison — is how such conversations can take place within earshot of other people. The depiction of the bubble of silence that exists when people are focusing is great, in terms of a given character’s point of view. However, that near-silence is entirely psychological, not physical. People nearby would be privy to what is discussed.

This first episode of Daredevil: Born Again is titled “Heaven’s Half Hour.” The second episode, signaling that it will focus on Fisk, is titled “Optics,” referring both to both a switch from sound to vision, and to the political sense of how current events are framed.

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This Week in Sound

A lightly annotated clipping service

▰ NINJA STARS: Tokyo is home to a “silent theft” event — called “盗-TOH-” — “challenging participants to take home products without making a single sound.” Per coverage in Tokyo Weekender: “The rules are simple yet nerve-wracking: enter the venue, select items you want to take home, and leave without making any sound. The venue is equipped with over 200 highly sensitive microphones that catch even the slightest noise. Make a sound, and your ‘theft’ attempt is immediately terminated. Each participant or group has just 60 seconds to complete their silent mission. … What makes 盗-TOH- particularly fascinating is how it transforms the concept of ‘stealing’ into a legitimate, rule-bound challenge. The event’s disclaimer specifically notes that it ‘does not promote or condone criminal activities’ — rather, it creates a uniquely Japanese blend of tension, skill, and reward.”

▰ POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT: The noise of construction may be diminishing thanks to technological advances, per Feargus O’Sullivan of Bloomberg: “A wave of electrification is sweeping the construction industry, fueled not just by environmental concerns and tightening pollution mandates but also by demands for machinery that is less disruptive than the diesel-powered standard. The transition from fossil fuel to electricity is notably less discussed for backhoes, wheel loaders and forklifts than it is for passenger vehicles, but it is one that could make a real difference in creating cleaner, quieter cities and a healthier environment for workers and residents alike. That in turn stands to deliver other positive effects, easing public resistance to noisy construction projects and potentially paving the way for less costly development.”

▰ DULY NOTED: The New York Times pays attention to an underknown, and under appreciated, role in the classical music industry, that of the music editor: “Like a page-turner for a pianist or a sheet music librarian, music editor is the kind of job that only the idiosyncratic structures of classical music can produce. It requires an extremely high aptitude with all aspects of notated music, an understanding of the intricate layers of this literate, visual tradition — not just of notes on a page, but also of how minute cosmetic changes to their appearance might fundamentally alter how those notes sound — and a strong working knowledge of all the strands of music-making that have sought to expand, critique and dismantle notational systems over the past century.”

▰ GRACE NOTES: (1) Bed Time: “If a teen under 16 is still using the app after 10PM, TikTok will interrupt their feed with a full-screen ‘wind down’ reminder, which will play ‘calming music to help teens relax and be mindful of the time.’” ▰ (2) Beak Up: There’s an illustrated guide to identifying how birds chatter. It’s by Becca Rowland and due out June 24. … (3) Music of Changes: And the book may eventually need an update, as research shows “birds can change their tunes as their populations evolve.” ▰ (4) Screen Time: Apparently pets like Flow, the animated movie that won the Oscar: “Matiss Kaza, who produced and co-wrote the film, said in an email that he suspects that it’s the real animal sounds used in production that attract the attention of our domesticated friends.” (5) Ear Ring: New AirPod Pros are likely three months away, reportedly promising heart rate monitoring and better noise cancellation — with cameras, perhaps, down the road in a future version. ▰ (6) Welcome Home: And Apple may be developing its own doorbell. ▰ And the next Apple mouse may take dictation. ▰ (7) Water World: “Scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery about the origins of the human outer ear, revealing that this distinctive mammalian feature evolved from an unexpected source: fish gills.” ▰ (8) Like a Prayer: There’s discussion ongoing as to whether laws in India forbidding street preachers and loudspeakers are fighting noise pollution or religious activites.

▰ Credit Due: Thanks, Michael Rhode, for the music editor piece and the birdsong book, and Rich Pettus for the bird song research piece and the gill piece.

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Swapping Lanes

An early Auto Memo Recorder update

One thing occurred to me when I began using the Auto Memo Recorder app, which provides a utility I’ve long looked for, which is the seemingly simple — but for a long time inaccessible — ability to easily record voice memos while driving, all without touching one’s phone. (Just to be more specific: I also mean without using voice commands, which I still find more of a hassle than they’re worth much of the time.)

The newly released Auto Memo Recorder app works through Apple CarPlay, which, like Android Auto, puts elements of a given app — or a combination of apps — on the touchscreen of one’s car. In the first version of Auto Memo Recorder that I tried, and I believe it was the very first version of the app, the button to record audio appeared in the upper right hand corner of the car’s touchscreen. Since I live in the United States, that was about as far away from the steering wheel as it could get. Not so far as to be a hassle, but far enough to be easily improved upon.

I was already corresponding at the time with the app’s creator, and when I began writing a note about the position of the button, I noticed that his email address had a .uk suffix, meaning he likely lived in the UK, and likely, therefore, had set the button placement where it was for the same reason I wanted it on the opposite side. He promptly updated the app, which now has the “Swap CarPlay Layout” option shown here:

Check out the app at the App Store.

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Public Scratch Pad

Bits from my online notebook

At the end of each week, I usually collate a lightly edited collection of recent comments I’ve made on social media, which I think of as my public scratch pad. I find knowing I’ll revisit my posts to be a positive and mellowing influence on my social media activity. I mostly hang out on Mastodon (at post.lurk.org/@disquiet), and I’m also trying out a few others. And I generally take weekends off social media.

▰ There are days when I look at — and listen to — my inbox full of music press releases, and I find myself wondering if George Winston may be the most influential pianist of the second half of the 20th century.

▰ It’s quite sunny out but I can tell the temperature is still low because there have been no sirens from emergency vehicles rushing to handle incidents at the beach

▰ “Slow Children at Play”
“End”
“Quiet Zone”
“Duck Crossing”

— this is some of the signage that Disquiet Junto music community participants are willfully mis-interpreting as compositional prompts in this week’s project.

▰ Another slice of car voice-to-text weirdness: Once — just once, at least so far — I verbally responded “cool” to someone’s text message in the car, and the car replied, “No, you’re cool, Marc,” and there was a little pause between “cool” and “Marc” as the system stitched my name into the phrase.

▰ The car’s voice-to-text text messaging has funny quirks: like, if I reply “sounds good” to someone, the car mistakenly interprets that as me confirming its inquiry as to whether I want to respond, so I say “sounds good,” then it begins to record my outgoing message, and then I say “sounds good” all over again.

▰ It’s March now and we’re due in the Disquiet Junto music community for the trio project, likely not this week, but soon. The trio project goes like this: the first week, people record a third of a trio; the second, different people fill in a second slot of these trios; and in the third, the trios are completed by another person.

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Junto Recommended for Music Educators

This is so great. Katie Argyle, the Australian music education specialist who helps music teachers understand and utilize technology at her midnightmusic.com.au website, has written a post recommending the Disquiet Junto for students. This really made my day.

The article is titled “600+ Songwriting Ideas for High School Music Students.” She writes, at the opening:

The Disquiet Junto project is an incredible resource if you’re looking for fresh and exciting ways to inspire your high school music students in their songwriting projects. Since 2012, Marc Weidenbaum of Disquiet.com has curated over 600 unique composition challenges, each designed to push musicians out of their comfort zones.

These prompts aren’t your typical songwriting exercises. They encourage musicians to think beyond standard melodies and lyrics and incorporate sound design, chance operations, and environmental influences into their compositions.

And she proceeds to describe the Junto’s utility and to recommend 10 past Junto projects. Argyle also outlines four reasons she believes the Junto prompts are useful for teachers and students:

Encourages Creative Thinking – Students explore new approaches to composition.

Adaptable to All Skill Levels – Accessible for beginner to advanced music students.

Integrates Technology – Many prompts work well with DAWs and recording tools.

Cross-Curricular Connections – Involves science (acoustics), literature (storytelling), and film.

The full article is at midnightmusic.com.

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End of Transmission

Modus operandi: Listening to art ▰ Playing with audio ▰ Sounding out technology ▰ Composing in code ▰ Loitering in video games ▰ Rewinding the soundscape