A few days ago, the BBC published a report on the worrying consequences that urban noise can have on health, and Barcelona was a central theme. It must be said: the concept of "noise pollution" is too convoluted or sophisticated to colloquially refer to or denounce noise, the high-voltage clamor, the acoustic madness that emanates from the streets, public places, houses facing public roads, the crunch of popcorn at the most sublime moment of a movie, from many balconies where people are talking loudly on their cell phones until the early hours of the morning. These unnecessary public disturbances also occur on public transportation: buses, subways, and commuter trains. I could extend the list of these noises ad infinitum in Barcelona (I should also include the thunderous noises of airplanes flying over the towns near El Prat Airport). While I'm at it, lately it's very difficult to find a public place where noisy noise isn't the norm. And what is accepted, almost welcomed, judging by the ecstatic faces of the occasional listeners of the latest reggaeton trend, served for a few willing cents at full speed on the subway or in public. In restaurants, the murmur has given way to noise, also to the unbearable noise that the waiters allow to set up the tables and chairs they move from one place to another; to the shrieks of children whose parents do nothing to make them speak quietly, as often happens in any restaurant in France, where parents, with envious persuasive skill, convey to their offspring the obligation to never exceed the barrier of ideal sound (because such a sound exists). We are also beginning to see on the streets of Barcelona people, most of them food delivery drivers, with tiny stereos with piercing speakers attached to their bicycles.
Can we aspire to live in Barcelona with zero sound? Well, no, simply because zero sound doesn't exist. Or to put it another way, absolute silence doesn't exist. There is the ideal sound. Surely the same one that Neanderthal man encountered when he began to roam our planet in search of a living.
If we don't exceed 50 decibels, the chirping of birds will reach us intact, many of which species are currently on the verge of extinction or are rapidly declining, as is the case with sparrows. When will we see our right to live in a city without stridency regained, and will the human murmur reach our ears, now as impossible as it is necessary? I'll cite two examples that illustrate what I would call the sounds of silence. Precisely one of the most beautiful songs of the sixties is titled "The Sound of Silence." Well, its author, Paul Simon, said that one day he desperately needed absolute silence to compose. He locked himself in the bathroom and began sketching and scribbling notes, until he discovered he needed a minimal background noise and turned on the shower; miraculously, that fine, artificial rain guided him to his song. In these same pages, a few days ago, the poet and translator Feliu Formosa confessed that the saddest moment of daily life in the nursing home where he lives is the absolute silence at mealtime. A devastating silence, his words implied.
The Madrid Ombudsman is currently addressing complaints from residents of some towns surrounding the M30 about the unbearable noise pollution this highway has been generating for a long time. The unbearable din that surrounds us prevents us from being in contact with the sounds of nature and humanity. The murmur of voices in a café gives us life, which is why at some point during the day we go there. It is the sounds of humanity in its normal daily routine that draw us in. But also the mooing of cows on their farms, feeding or communicating with their young. Or the buzzing of bees. An internet search for the meaning of "background noise" can tell us the difference between a natural noise and one, like an intruder, more inconvenient.
There is a debate in Barcelona today about the noise coming from schoolyards. I don't intend to comment on it; I will only say that, if today on the subway we usually take, a child attracts its mother's attention with the only means it has to demand the breast, the always effective crying, here we don't have noise, we have the exact sound of life.
