Letter From Paris presents...The Sound Hunter

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A GOLDEN MOMENT 

By Des Coulam. Recording the street sounds of Paris attempting to capture that gratuitous, never-ending show for which no ticket is needed.

Some people take photographs; I record sound. There is a French expression that describes best what I do. I am a chasseur de son – a sound hunter. Like the great twentieth-century street photographers from whom I take my inspiration I am a promeneur, endlessly walking the streets of Paris searching for what Henri Cartier-Bresson described as the decisive moment. Robert Doisneau, in my book the greatest of the French street photographers, referred to it as capturing that gratuitous, never-ending show for which no ticket is needed. Anyone familiar with my work will recognise that phrase because I use it at every opportunity simply because it best describes the arena in which I work. And what an arena – the streets of Paris from the Bois de Boulogne in the west to the Bois de Vincennes in the east, from Saint-Ouen in the north to Montrouge in the south. None of the recordings I make are staged or rehearsed, they are what they are - the sounds of the city I love.

Recording street sounds can be both exhilarating and frustrating. It really is a hunt for that elusive golden moment.

 

The rue de la Huchette, nestled in the shadows of the Cathedral of Nôtre Dame and the churches of Saint Julien le Pauvre and Saint Séverin, is about as Parisian as it’s possible to get. Hundreds of years of history lie in this street, from the medieval to the modern, through wars to peace, from abject poverty to relative prosperity. Today the rue de la Huchette is a tourist trap, deserted in the winter and full to overflowing in the summer.

 

 

 Imagine then your chasseur de son spending a summer Saturday afternoon in the rue de la Huchette searching for that golden moment only to find that it is a sound desert. Yes, the tourist chatter is there but he has recorded that many times before and to record it again would add nothing to his ‘Soundlandscapes’ archive that is not already there. The restaurants fill and then empty but, beyond the clatter of plates, no unusual sounds are to be heard. Back and forth he wanders, this promeneur, looking, searching, hunting, but the prey is elusive.

A stop in a café, although welcome, provides little respite from the hunt. It must be here somewhere … but where? More walking, more searching, it’s four hours now and still nothing.  Dinner in the rue de la Harpe adjacent to the rue de la Huchette, time to regroup, to re-think, to make another plan.

A good dinner and large pichet de vin rouge soften the edges. Time to relax, maybe the hunt is not so important after all, a slow walk back to the Hotel de Ville, the Metro and home seems a good plan.

Your chasseur de son leaves the restaurant but the instinct is still there – it’s got to be here somewhere. The Metro calls but something else calls too, that intuitive feeling, the indefinable something that says, “Keep searching”.

 

 

 

The church of Saint Séverin is a three-minute walk from the restaurant in a street off the rue de la Huchette. The pull is almost magnetic, the scent is strong and the chase is on.

The door of the church opens and there, at last, is the prey, the golden moment, submitting to the hunter.

Listen to the Singers of St. Severin

 

Unless otherwise indicated, photos by Des Coulam.

Des Coulam writes and records the Soundlandscapes blog at:  www.soundlandscapes.wordpress.com