Every Christmas, I try to go back to Switzerland to visit family. This year was a little different: my parents are moving so it was my last time staying in the house I grew up in. As I was thinking about how weird that was, I suddenly realized that I had never really recorded much in the house. So I packed all my sound gear for the trip and spent a good part of the vacation fervently recording everything I could get my hands on (much to my parents’ chagrin). The purpose of those recordings was different from what it normally is: the goal was not to collect more material for my library (even though that is always a nice added benefit), but to capture sonic mementos of the sounds I closely associate with home. I wanted to preserve these sounds lest I forget them. It’s an idea I’ve been thinking about a lot lately; similar to how we often use photos to capture important memories I think there is a value in recording sounds for the same purpose.

There is one sound in particular that reminds me very fondly of home and immediately transports me back in time and space. In fact, it might be my all-time favorite sound. Our house is roughly a ten minute walk away from the Lake of Zurich, but since it is built on a hill there is a direct line of sight and sound. The window in my room opens towards the lake, and at night you can sometimes hear ducks quack. There was always something very soothing to that sound. I didn’t actually expect to record it since it happens so unpredictably and rarely, but man did I get lucky:

Another favorite of mine that triggers memories is the kitchen clock:

It’s funny how your perception changes based on your experience. I’m sure to most people this sounds just like any other clock. But to me, this clock couldn’t be more familiar and unique. The whole recording also contains some bus passes outside our house that always remind me of our dog (who sadly passed away years ago): somehow she figured out that there was a connection between the sound of the bus approaching and my dad miraculously showing up at the front door a couple of minutes later when he came home from work. So whenever she heard the bus, she would expectantly run towards the window and look out in anticipation of my dad.

The weather was also exceptionally kind, offering the whole gamut from sunshine to storm throughout my trip. Check out this recording I made in our garden on the last night of my trip:

The last couple of sounds are all related to trains. Growing up, trains and trams were pretty much my only mode of transportation. Here’s the sound of a train (the S-Bahn) approaching and stopping with me standing on the platform (captured with binaural mics). I must have heard this sound a thousand times:

And here’s a recording inside the train as it enters and then exits a tunnel. Listen to how quickly the sound changes at the beginning and the end of the recording:

Lastly, the familiar ding dong before the next station is announced: