Somewhere in Maryland there is a phone booth which rather than accepting phone calls, it shares bird calls. This is a project from composer, audio producer, and violinist David Schulman who originally submitted it as part of a contest on interactive public art projects. The idea first came from Schulman having noticed non working pay phones around his town with the pay phone used for the project being a repurposed payphone he got from eBay.
As for the birdcalls, they come from The Macaulay Library from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and comprise of native birds from Takoma Park, Maryland. Along with this audio, the phone also includes descriptions of each bird which were recorded by some of Schulman’s friends. There are instructions on how to use the phone posted in English, Spanish, and Amharic which allows people to listen to 10 birds native to the area. Each button on the pay phone plays the birdsong of a certain species. Additionally, when someone dials 0 or 411 they can contact migratory assistance to get information on the birds’ migration routes.
The act of listening to the birdsongs can help significantly alleviate anxiety and paranoia after listening to birdsong of low and high diversity soundscapes, which does the opposite of traffic noise; the traffic noise of any diversity actually increased depressiveness in the study. Though the power of birdsong and nature sounds can have an impact beyond just anxiety and paranoia with “pleasant natural sounds” being tied to lower blood pressure, better cognitive performances and even in reducing pain and the stress hormone cortisol; one study even found that ICU patients on ventilators reported less pain. As for the soundscapes they used, many of the studies used birdsong and water sounds, with the birdsong being tied to alleviating stress and annoyance and water for boosting health outcomes and emotions like tranquility. Now scientists are looking into how pleasant nature sounds can be enjoyed in places where there is “less desirable” noise, such as in Yellowstone where traffic and busy crowds can affect noise levels and the area’s soundscape, and the preservation of soundscapes in our national park system.
Free, Cathy. “This Pay Phone Is Free, but You Can’t Make a Call. It Only Plays Birdsongs.” Washington Post, 17 Jan. 2024, www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2024/01/15/bird-calls-pay-phone-maryland/ .
Handwerk, Brian. “Listening to Nature Gives You a Real Rocky Mountain High.” Smithsonian Magazine, 5 Apr. 2021, www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-listening-sounds-nature-can-be-restorative-180977397/.
Stobbe, E., et al. “Birdsongs Alleviate Anxiety and Paranoia in Healthy Participants.” Scientific Reports, vol. 12, no. 1, Oct. 2022, p. 16414, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20841-0.