British composer and self-styled “nonmusician” Brian Eno has recorded several albums of “ambient music.” In the liner notes for his Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978), he wrote that ambient music must “accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.” It occurs to me that Provincetown has its own ambient music — the mix of the individual sounds of people and things concurrently working, playing, serving, and just attending to their own needs — that is both ignorable and interesting.
We live across the street from the Conwell Home Center and lumber yard. It’s noisy on our deck, but I’m not complaining.
The birds own daybreak, cackling, singing, courting in a chaotic chorus that comes from all directions. They continue to some degree for most of the day, mingling with a lot of other ambient music.
A bit later in the morning, the 18-wheelers arrive with the halting whoosh of their hydraulic brakes, delivering lumber, nails, licorice, hydrangeas, plastic deck chairs, and thousands of other disparate items. Their arrival is followed for the rest of the day by the sounds of the forklifts and the conversations and occasional shouts from the Conwell staff, as these artifacts are unloaded and squirreled away in their assigned places. To our delight, on some later day, we will find that exact item we wanted right where it should be in the aisles.
Out on the street, we hear the electric-toothbrush sound of the street sweeper, keeping the pavement neat and tidy, and conversations among folks trying to decipher the instructions for the electronic parking kiosks.
There’s an infrequent acoustical phenomenon that causes amplified sound from the front of Provincetown Town Hall to be broadcast almost directly to our deck, with amazing clarity and volume. We’ll hear the performers themselves, a brief pause, then the crowd’s cheers and applause in response.
Occasionally a siren will startle us; that’d be our public safety team responding with urgency to a dangerous situation or someone in need.
And at certain points during the day, the ferries blow their whistles, signaling they are leaving the dock with another group of visitors heading home, perhaps with a shopping bag full of happy memories.
Back in the neighborhood, our friends host cocktail parties on their patio right beyond our fence. These create a general buzz of lively conversation and laughter, punctuated by the cheerful bark of their enthusiastic dog.
Someone nearby has a wind chime that creates a low-level ringing.
Sometimes someone will run a power tool or lawn mower. In the fall, one neighbor cuts and splits firewood for the winter out in his yard while listening to left-wing talk on his portable radio.
And sometimes in the summer, late at night, groups of partiers pass by the house, heading home, chatting and laughing about their evening of fun. The birds will be back in just a few hours.
This is the ambient music of Provincetown as heard from our deck. It’s noisy here. I’m not complaining.
Jeff Mulliken lives in Provincetown and is a member of the planning board.
