by Contributing Editor Des Coulam. Recording the street sounds of Paris attempting to capture that gratuitous, never-ending show for which no ticket is needed.
Through An Open Window
THE MOULIN ROUGE in Pigalle is a magnet for tourists. Almost any time of the day or night, you will find people standing in front of it queuing to buy tickets or waiting to get in to see the scantily clad dancers perform. Across the street, people with cameras flirt with the traffic trying to capture images of this Paris icon.
Of all the tourists who flock to this place I suspect very few venture a few steps to the left of the Moulin Rouge and explore its next-door neighbour, the Cité Véron.
This cobblestone alley has an intimate feel. It’s eighty metres long and just three metres wide and the lush vegetation leans over to occupy what little space there is for pedestrians.
The sound of the traffic from the busy Boulevard de Clichy close by seems to almost disappear the further along this alley you go. But on the day I went, the sound of the traffic was replaced by a completely different sound.
Birdsong was in the air but there was something else too … the sound of a piano. The Cité Véron is lined with high walls causing the sound to reverberate so it was difficult to tell exactly where the sound was coming from but somewhere, someone was playing a piano.
Further investigation eventually led me up some stone steps to an open window and a wonderful surprise. Through the window came the sounds as a répétiteur played the piano accompanying a full-blown ballet class.
This was no children’s Saturday afternoon dance class – this was the real deal. Beautiful, supple young women gracefully pushing their bodies further than bodies should be pushed - all under the command of an authoritative, elderly gentleman who issued his orders in time to the music.
Beautiful young women, arabesques, pliés and the sound of a piano through an open window were not quite what I expected when I arrived in the Cité Véron. But it seems that this place does, after all, have something in common with its more raucous next-door neighbour.
Click here to listen to the beautiful sound in the Cite Veron - Ballet
I sent this sound to a friend of mine, a former dancer with the Royal Ballet and back came her reply...
“You captured the sound of class exactly. There has to be a sort of echoing quality, I don't know why, but you got it. It was beautiful, really. It brought tears to my eyes. The picture was very clear. Thank you!”
… and that brought a tear to eye of the Sound Hunter!
Des Coulam has a passion for recording and preserving our sonic environment. He writes and records the Soundlandscapes blog at www.soundlandscapes.wordpress.com
