Yesterday I was awoken from a nap by the sound of a man grunting loudly as if he was charging up a hill in battle and running a bayonet through someone. It was timed in intervals and showed no signs of stopping. I was annoyed, but turned it into something creative as I grabbed my handy Zoom H4N recorder and headed across the street. I pushed record on my way there so that I could capture the sound for a future student project whereby one needed loud and painful grunts to sound design a war scene. As I approached, I discovered that the grunts were coming from the tennis courts!
I stood by the chain-link fence with my recorder out and the players stopped to stare at me wondering, I’m sure, what on earth I was doing. So, I introduced myself and told them that I teach audio at CCSF in the BEMA department and I wanted the sound of the grunting for a future television or film project for my students. They both laughed aloud when they heard that I had likened them to shouts on a battlefield. Unfortunately, they were wrapping up but they did one more round just for me. These grunts were 50% of what I had heard previously, but they still worked for my recording.
This is what I captured! I call it Sound Healing because I turned my annoyance into something positive and I’m sure that the grunter finds his shouts healing for himself. I mean, who doesn’t wake up every morning in this Brave New World of 45 and his tribe and not want to swat a ball around and grunt loudly?
danajae33 
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