A sound walk through Hachidai Shrine and Enkōji Temple in Kyoto
Listening closely to places we thought we already knew.
I’m SJF, a composer, sound artist and writer living in Kyoto, Japan. These letters are for those seeking a bit of quiet; stories, soundscapes, and moments of beauty from this beautiful city. I write for those drawn to traditional craftsmanship, ambient music, and mindful internet spaces. If that’s you, then please stay a little while.
Last week on a very humid and sticky summer afternoon, I went on a lovely sound walk with a couple of good friends who've lived in this city for a long time. They're both huge fans of ambient music and art and were keen to join me for one of the tours I've been doing recently.
Together we explored Enkōji Temple and Hachidai Shrine with sound recorders. The cicadas' chirps were ceaselessly unrelenting; an unmistakable sound of summer in Japan. You can practically feel the weight of the humidity drip over every sound in these recordings. Even the shrine bells sounds like they're struggling to ring out.
After each walk, I collect the recordings that we made together and professionally edit them into a bespoke soundscape which acts as a kind of audio postcard. Here's a 1-minute snippet of the sounds these friends found intriguing.
In a message that they sent after I shared their recordings, they said "Even though it's just sound, I can vividly recall the place. I can even tell the season!". I loved that idea of being able to tell the season just through sound.
What interested me most is that they spent time capturing, and paying attention to, sounds they must have heard many times before, but through the act of active listening and noticing, were experiencing for the first time. Or at least in a novel way.
After we'd finished and were walking back towards the bus stop, we saw a guy walking down the street with those huge Apple headphones on—no doubt listening to music—and Kento said "It's sad to see that guy missing out on the many beautiful sounds all around him." It was such a great realisation. These are the moments I aim to facilitate on these sound walks. Those aha! moments where people think a little differently. I'm trying to show how different the world is when we stop to pay attention. How beautiful it can be.
By now, everyone and their grandma has no doubt seen this page ↑ from Ruth Krauss' beautiful book Open House for Butterflies, illustrated by the wonderful Maurice Sendak. It's often shared on social media. But I wanted to highlight it here because I think about this line a lot when I'm out doing one of these walks. Time and time again, I'm being told by the people who join me that the act of paying attention through listening allows us to experience the world in an entirely new way. Even when listening to something we've heard as background noise for decades, and therefore might take wholly for granted.
Maybe by now some of you are thinking, "Hey, that would be interesting, I'd like to join a sound walk!" but you're not visiting Kyoto soon or have no plans to come. How about doing your own version, wherever you are?
I stumbled upon a YouTube channel that I adore by a guy called ZW Buckley and at the beginning of one of his videos he gives some tips on how to capture sound with nothing but your phone's built-in microphone (and if you're interested, you can keep watching to see how to turn them into musical instruments in Ableton Live, if that's your thing).
He begins by pointing out that people are sometimes afraid to get into field recording because they think it needs heaps of fancy equipment to capture anything remotely decent. But actually the microphone you have in your pocket is good enough and that's the important thing.
If you do end up recording something please do share it. I'd love to hear what you're drawn to. Veta Wade is sharing nice recordings from her home on Montserrat, in the Caribbean, here on Substack. Please do check out her work.
And if you are visiting Kyoto soon and joining me on one of these sound walks is something you'd be interested in, please find more information here.
As always, thank you for noticing with me. If this letter stirred something within you and you’d like to support my work, please consider exploring my music on Bandcamp. Sharing this letter with friends or family also helps a bunch and costs nothing 🙏
Until next time,
🍃 SJF
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