On the Nature of Sounds in Italian Streets.

The twisting labyrinth of streets in Rome and Siena has curious effects on sound. Sound waves are confined to their piazza of origin, or to even a bend in the road. One may be only fifty meters from the Campo de Fiori on a Monday but be unable to hear the roar. This creates a strange sense of spatial isolation. It allows one to sit in a quiet grotto-like piazza and feel completely separated from the loud drone of the city streets. Nowhere was this more clear than in Siena. It was early morning and a local marching band was practicing marching about the streets playing drums (this is only the second of three times that drums made an appearance in Siena). Lying in bed I could hear the drums growing louder, not gradually, but in steps. Noise on the streets is quantized. Of course each time the sound grows louder it meant that the drummers were turning a corner, as it also did when they became muted a minute after their appearance.