Sounds That Come When You Cover Your Ears

I keep my earphones on almost all the time at home.
Of course, I take them off when I'm talking to my family.

Before, I only wore them when watching videos.
As for why things are the way they are now:

About a year ago, there was a period when I had an intense craving for nature.
I wanted to be surrounded by trees, I wanted to bathe in the sound of a river, I couldn't help but want to go into the forest.
I had always felt a desire to be in touch with nature, but this time it was strangely intense.

However, it was winter.
One way to calm down at times like this is to go to the herb garden in the mountains of Kobe, but unfortunately, it was closed for the season.
I can't drive, and in the first place, it's dangerous, so I can't just wander off to the nearby mountains by myself.

The pain of wanting nature but not being able to have it grew gradually.
I decided to think of alternatives.
During this period, I ate nothing but leafy vegetables.
Every single day, I ate them piled high on my plate.
It was also around this time that I started growing a succulent called Plectranthus hadiensis because I wanted to bring even a little bit of nature into my home.

And another method I adopted was listening to ambient sounds.
At first, it was mainly the sound of a babbling brook, but I started listening to the sound of waves and rain as well.
And before long, I began listening to the sounds of bonfires and fireplaces.
Bonfires and fireplaces might not be completely natural, but I think I probably wanted fire as well as water.

Since I basically have my computer on when I'm at home, I connected my earphones and just kept listening.
I'm not good at sitting still, so I use Bluetooth earphones.
Thanks to that, I can listen while moving freely around the house.
Even when I'm watching other videos, I play them at a low volume at the same time.
I wanted to feel the sound close by, and I didn't want to disturb my family, so I hardly ever used speakers.

Gradually, the intense urge to seek nature subsided.
However, I still often feel uneasy without the sounds of nature, so I listen to them quite frequently.
Recently, thanks to a video that appeared in my YouTube recommendations, I've also started listening to quiet music.
I think it's a genre called ambient music.

This video was the catalyst.

Singing voices and piano sounds that make your heart feel transparent.
It's very pleasant to listen to.
The same phrase is repeated for six and a half minutes, but there are slight changes, so it never gets boring.

And what I'm currently listening to as a favorite is "Aoi Mori" (Blue Forest) by haruka nakamura, who created the song mentioned earlier.
As of the time I wrote this article, 1 and 2 are on sale.
It seems to be music played at several Tsutaya Bookstore locations.
I had hardly ever been there, so I didn't know.

The link I posted here is for the CD, but it seems there is a vinyl record version as well.
The jacket photo was taken by Rinko Kawauchi.
I had just purchased a photo book by this person the other day, so I was surprised when I looked into it in detail while writing this article.

And yesterday, Aoi Mori 3 was released digitally.
I realized this when I looked it up just now, thinking I would publish this article.
What a coincidence. I'm going to listen to it now.

It seems there are plans to release a total of four works for Aoi Mori by the summer of 2024.
I will probably buy them all on CD.

haruka nakamura has released many other albums as well.
It seems they collaborate with various artists and provide music for commercials, so they might be a famous person that I just didn't know about.
If you would like to try listening to them, including Aoi Mori, click here.

It was unthinkable for the me of the past, who liked complex and intense music, to start listening to this kind of music.
The same goes for ambient sounds. I didn't listen to them at all before.
It's not that my tastes have changed completely, but rather that I've come to like them in addition to the music I liked before.
What on earth has changed in me?

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