"Variations in air pressure against the ear drum, and the subsequent physical and neurological processing and interpretation, give rise to the subjective experience called sound."
The acoustics of Old Town Madrid are their own. From the fourth floor of the old building, the sounds drift up the air shaft. Cooking sounds of pots and pans, and voices speaking in a foreign tongue. Spanish. My one year of it in high school leaves me ill-equipped. There is a spicy smell along with the tiniest whiff of garbage. I can hear children playing. There is laughter and the sounds of booted heel on cobbled street. The buildings are so close that I can’t see the street at all, only the tiled roofs across the way. They feel close enough that I could jump. (I dreamed of having to jump across an open abyss between buildings. Onto a metal surface and I knew I would not make it.) There is a cat in a window box that is filled with plastic geraniums. Around the corner from the restaurant where the tiny spanish woman tried to talk to me, all smiles and nodding head, a canary sings from a cage on a small iron balcony. The sound swoops and soars, echoing off the stone walls and streets. The acoustics of Old Town Madrid become about what is missing. The sound of cars, buses, sirens in the night and rap music blaring from open windows. Instead, it is the softer sounds from another time. It could be any time, a different time, somewhere older, less advanced than cities today. I could be back in the 17th century. I cannot understand the voices around me, so they could be saying anything. “How are the crops faring?” “When will the midwife come?” “The ships sail from Barcelona at dawn.” Waiters try to lure us into eating at their establishments. I shake my head. “No habla espanol.” But I want to habla, very badly. Or maybe not. We drift through the plaza. Fat spiderman is there again. A man is playing an accordian and singing. Close my eyes as I walk at dusk. An elf on the corner and strange ringing music. An old man sits in front of an elaborate rack of glasses, each filled with water to a different level. He moistens his fingers and runs them around the rims, creating an eerie melody. He is wearing a suit and does not look up at the people passing by. There is no cup or can for the coins of passing strangers. His acoustics are his own.
The acoustics of Old Town Madrid are their own. From the fourth floor of the old building, the sounds drift up the air shaft. Cooking sounds of pots and pans, and voices speaking in a foreign tongue. Spanish. My one year of it in high school leaves me ill-equipped. There is a spicy smell along with the tiniest whiff of garbage. I can hear children playing. There is laughter and the sounds of booted heel on cobbled street. The buildings are so close that I can’t see the street at all, only the tiled roofs across the way. They feel close enough that I could jump. (I dreamed of having to jump across an open abyss between buildings. Onto a metal surface and I knew I would not make it.) There is a cat in a window box that is filled with plastic geraniums. Around the corner from the restaurant where the tiny spanish woman tried to talk to me, all smiles and nodding head, a canary sings from a cage on a small iron balcony. The sound swoops and soars, echoing off the stone walls and streets. The acoustics of Old Town Madrid become about what is missing. The sound of cars, buses, sirens in the night and rap music blaring from open windows. Instead, it is the softer sounds from another time. It could be any time, a different time, somewhere older, less advanced than cities today. I could be back in the 17th century. I cannot understand the voices around me, so they could be saying anything. “How are the crops faring?” “When will the midwife come?” “The ships sail from Barcelona at dawn.” Waiters try to lure us into eating at their establishments. I shake my head. “No habla espanol.” But I want to habla, very badly. Or maybe not. We drift through the plaza. Fat spiderman is there again. A man is playing an accordian and singing. Close my eyes as I walk at dusk. An elf on the corner and strange ringing music. An old man sits in front of an elaborate rack of glasses, each filled with water to a different level. He moistens his fingers and runs them around the rims, creating an eerie melody. He is wearing a suit and does not look up at the people passing by. There is no cup or can for the coins of passing strangers. His acoustics are his own. 
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