Art by Jon McCormack.
This episode was written & produced by the listeners of Twenty Thousand Hertz.
We’re proud to present the winning entries from our Sound Off competition: five listener-made short stories that rose to the very top. From clever tinnitus tonics to melodic subway signals, from mischievous church bells to a guitar that speaks in whispers, this Gold Collection is rich with emotion, originality, and sonic craft.
MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE
Still Sleeping by Wesley Slover
Cold Sky by Wesley Slover
Sandra Robot by Wesley Slover
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View Transcript ▶︎
[20K Sonic Logo]
[music in: Wesley Slover - Still Sleeping]
This past spring, we held a competition called Sound Off, where we invited listeners to submit a fully produced story about sound. In other words, make your own mini Twenty Thousand Hertz episode in five minutes or less. We received an unbelievable fifty seven submissions, and they were so good that we had to split the winners up into three separate episodes.
Earlier this summer, we aired the bronze and silver collections. And now, we've finally reached the gold. Now, I knew that there were lots of talented people in the audience... but I never could have guessed how insightful, moving, and unique these stories would be. So without further ado, here are the top choices from this year’s Sound Off.
[music out]
Story One: Tinnity
Other Voices: Sound Design Italia.
Daniele: I slide into bed. The house is silent. For the past couple of months, I've been sleeping alone in this room. Not because I want to, but because my girlfriend and I are trying a new strategy with our 15 month old daughter. She's never been a great sleeper. So now, we take turns. She stays in our daughter's room, helping her settle, then carefully moves her to her tiny bed once she's asleep.
Daniele: The doors are open and I can hear my daughter repeating, "Papa," "Mama" over and over, fighting off sleep. After a while, silence. She's finally given in. And then, I hear it.
Daniele: Funny enough, I'm a sound designer. I've spent years shaping sounds, crafting atmospheres, designing sonic worlds, tweaking every little detail to make things sound just right. And yet, there's one sound I can't control. One sound I didn't create. One sound that never stops.
Daniele: Sound isn't just my job, it's my passion. I have trained my ears, working with it and listening deeply. I know how fragile hearing is, so I've always been careful keeping volumes in check, protecting my ears.
Daniele: But despite that, I did something I should have done years earlier. I booked a hearing test. Honestly, I felt a bit ashamed. I studied sound design at university for three years. I started working in 2014. I should have checked my hearing long before 2022.
Daniele: Still, the test went great. Perfect hearing, 10 out of 10 in both ears. The doctor gestures towards a small padded booth. I step inside.
Daniele: It was always there, but in that absolute silence, I realized how strong it was. I asked the doctor about it. She barely reacted. Then, she told me I didn't need any hearing test for at least 10 years. Especially because of my job, she said I was more aware, more cautious. But that awareness didn't help me unhear it.
Daniele: After that hearing test, something changed. Before, tinnitus was just there, part of the background. But now, now that I knew for sure, it was all I could hear. It felt worse on stressful days. But on weekends or during holidays, when I was relaxed, it faded, almost like it wasn't there at all. That gave me an idea. If external conditions could make it better or worse, maybe sound itself could be the key.
Daniele: I tried Tinnius Therapy apps. Gentle rain, ocean waves, crackling fireplaces... They helped, but something was missing. Why was I settling for someone else's idea of comfort? Then one night, a thought hit me. "I work with sound every day. What if I made my own?"
Daniele: The next day, I went back through my field recordings. The park near my home, my neighborhood, where I go when I need to clear my mind. The echoes of my best trip, Los Angeles. The energy of a city that made me feel completely free. A weekend in Rome, walking through history, getting lost in the streets with two good friends. These weren't just random sounds. They were mine. And somehow, they worked.
Daniele: I lay in bed listening, not to the tinnitus, not anymore. I lower the volume of my custom soundscape just a little. And then from the other room, "Papa," "Mama," one of the best sounds I’ll ever hear. And in that moment, for the first time, I feel healed.
Daniele: This was Tinnity, a short sound story written and produced by me, Daniele Prina at Amplitudo Sound Agency. Thank you for listening.
Story Two: Departure Melodies
Ryan: That is the sound outside of my Los Angeles home where my wife and I live next to the subway train. Like less than 20 yards away from the train. So not only can we hear the sound of the train moving down the tracks, we can often hear this, the musical tones alerting passengers to their stop.
Ryan: I'm familiar with these sounds that exist in subway cars in other cities I've lived, like Washington DC, and New York... which is why, the first time I boarded a subway car in Tokyo, I was taken aback by their version of these tones. It was a full musical idea, fully realized, and surprisingly catchy. So I took out my phone to make a better voice memo of it at the next station, but when we got to the next station... the melody was completely different. And at the next station, another new musical idea.
Ryan: These were all different from one another, and different from the repetitive themes I'd heard in every other subway I'd been in. It felt like these never repeated. And what I learned was this is entirely the point.
Rika: "Hassha merodī," which translates as "train departure melody" is something that's unique to every train station or every train line, and it's typically four to seven seconds long.
Ryan: That's Rika Iino. Rika lives in San Francisco, but she grew up in Japan. She's a cultural entrepreneur and the founder of Sozo, a contemporary arts agency. "Sozo" is a Japanese word that means both "imagine" and "create," depending on how it's written.
Rika: So there's a composer that has composed hundreds, I believe, of these melodies designed to grab your attention without startling you. And they're a part of everyday Japanese life.
Ryan: That composer is Minoru Mukaiya, and while he wasn't the first, he's by far the most prolific producer of these departure melodies you hear at each station.
Ryan: Mukaiya first gained recognition as the keyboardist in the band Cassiopeia in the 1980s, but his path to train melody composer is a bit circuitous. He actually developed a train simulator software, not unlike a video game, for conductors to practice and learn on. Within the simulator, he started embedding these unique melodies for each station.
Ryan: Eventually, the idea caught on, and he was commissioned to create melodies for every station. His process involves visiting each station and considering things like local history, attractions, and demographics. If a station is close to an older population, for instance, he'll use more traditional instruments. And for stops near schools, he'll use more contemporary sounds.
Rika: Train stations are like mini cities within what is the largest city in the world by metropolitan population. So the sounds you hear on these tracks are like part of that orderliness, that sort of organized chaos, just sort of gently nudging you along to go about your life. It's like the best form of public art, really.
Ryan: To date, he has created over two hundred melodies for over a hundred stations. And while this meticulous approach to train music may seem unusual when compared to other subway systems around the world, Rika notes that it's rooted in concepts that are deeply embedded throughout Japanese culture.
Rika: First of all, there is a Japanese philosophy called "Komakai koto," which is "details." This concept that values attention to small things and small gestures. Combine that with "Omotenashi," which is the concept of hospitality, this sort of essential component of our culture being that mundane is treated with utmost care and reverence.
Rika: The other thing that I think is also intrinsic to the Japanese culture is this notion of orderliness. That there is an extreme care towards harmony.
Rika: Yeah, that, that, that's a pretty special thing. These melodies, to me, they do evoke a sense of care.
Ryan: Thank you to Rika Iino and Sozo. This episode was produced by Ryan Holladay.
Story Three: The Whispering Guitar
Santiago: When I wrote music for the characters, Tonio and Juliana, I knew they had to have guitars. Not one, but two. Like two voices that know each other, that respect each other, that accompany one another. I wanted those guitars to speak the way people who love each other speak.
Santiago: For as long as I can remember, there was a sound that filled my home. It was a sound of my dad's guitar. My dad isn't a professional musician. He's a surgeon. And like any good surgeon, he always kept his fingernails perfectly short. That, though it might seem trivial, changed everything. The strings of his guitar didn't sound like those of a professional guitarist. They didn't have that sharp brightness or power. They sounded different.
Santiago: For reference, let me show you how a standard interpretation of "Villancico de Navidad" by composer Agustín Barrios Mangoré would sound.
Santiago: What we just heard was played with long fingernails. Now for comparison, here's my dad playing the same fragment.
Santiago: It’s softer, rounder, sweeter. As if the guitar was whispering.
Santiago: I grew up with that sound. It was the music of my home, the music of my father. And now every time I compose for a guitar, I try to emulate it. I do it without thinking, as if that memory had settled into my head and my fingers.
Santiago: Over the years, I became a composer. I learned to play the guitar and that sound, soft, imperfect, sweet, and full of soul is still the one that inspires me the most.
[music in: Wesley Slover - Cold Sky]
Santiago: This audio story was produced, recorded, and mixed by Santiago de la Paz Cardona. The music featured in this piece was composed by Camilo Rincón Yanine and Agustín Barrios Mangoré. Guitar performances by Nicolas Rivera, Camilo Rincón, and Luis Carlos Rincón. Voice narration by Santiago Alvarez Martinez. Created with love for the listeners of Twenty Thousand Hertz.
After the break, forbidden church bells, and the winning story of this year’s Sound Off competition.
[music out]
MIDROLL
Story Four: Jimmy and the Bells
Michael: This is a true story of when I was a kid. It's about how my brother Jimmy and I almost got in a really big trouble for waking up an entire town, all thanks to a tiny keyboard. Michael: When I was eight years old, my older brother, Jimmy, who was 10, was always in charge. If I didn't do what he said, I paid the price. We were altar boys at St. James Parish in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania.
Michael: One winter morning, we were scheduled to serve at the 6:00 AM mass. But on that day, Jimmy woke me up at five, 30 minutes early.
Michael: "Mikey, get up!" "Why so early?" "Get up!"
Michael: I knew better than to argue. We put on our clothes and trudged through the snow, arriving first.
Michael: "Jimmy, what are we doing?" Jimmy grinned. "Mikey, today we are exploring."
Michael: We weren't looking to steal anything, just fascinated by all the off-limits places. So we did explore. Drawers, closets, hidden staircases, anything without a lock.
Michael: Then, near the sanctuary, hidden right there in plain sight was the huge church organ we had never really noticed before. It loomed massive, humongous, multi-tiered, covered with knobs, pedals, gizmos, doodads... It... It looked like a spaceship.
Michael: But then next to this beast was a tiny keyboard. Like, the big one had a little sidekick. Jimmy flipped the switch to “On,” and there was an electric hum. Jimmy hesitated, then he pressed a key.
Michael: We froze. That wasn't the organ. That was the bell tower! The one that had never, ever been used as an alarm clock. The voice inside me screamed, "Run!" The voice inside Jimmy screamed "Again!" Holy moly. We were in so much trouble. I wanted to yell, "Stop!" but my mouth forgot how to work.
Michael: And then Jimmy got quiet. He focused in and did it.
Michael: Yep. My brother Jimmy played "Shave and a Haircut" on the church bells. Some folks wake up to roosters. On that day, Wilkinsburg woke up to Jimmy.
Michael: Then we heard "Who's in here?" Our stomachs dropped. We were dead. We bolted down the hall, down the stairs, out the back door into the freezing cold air. Halfway home, Jimmy grabbed my arm. "Mikey, wait, wait. We… We have to serve mass!" Go back? Was he joking? Uhhh, no. No, he wasn't.
Michael: On the way, he laid out his strategy. Deny everything. We got back to church, opened the door and Father Murphy was standing right there, furious.
Michael: We acted as innocent as, well, as altar boys. "Good morning father." "Morning father." "How are you?" "Lovely day, isn't it?" Father Murphy glared. "Were you boys in here earlier?" "No, father. But why?" He narrowed his eyes and paused. Then he said, "Nevermind. Get ready." We did.
Michael: That day, Jimmy made me swear never to tell anybody. And I never did until now. 'Cause I just found out that there's a 50 year statute of limitations on pinky swears. Who knew?
And now, the winner of our first Sound Off competition.
Story Five: The Language We Built
Francois: Sound is my world. My name is Francois Bélanger. I live in Montreal, where I work as a sound designer, music producer, and creative director.
Francois: When my son was born, he had congenital glaucoma, a rare disease that affects vision from birth. His world was always a little blurry, but sound? Sound became everything for him. And it just so happens that sound is my professional field after all.
Francois: It became the way we connected. When he was very young, he spoke so fast and so well, he sounded like a little adult sometimes. He would express himself with these precise, rich words, almost too big for his small size.
Francois: At home, we invented stories. I would sometimes read him books, but the pictures, they didn't really hold his attention. What mattered to him was sound. We would create characters, make funny voices, invent entire worlds, just by imagining. One of our favorites was Mr. Potato Head. In our world, Mr. Potato Head was a bit different. He drove a Mini Cooper, and often took the subway.
Francois: Speaking of the subway, it quickly became his real world passion. We would spend afternoons just riding the trains. Watching, listening. There are two kinds of vehicles on the STM network in Montreal: the MR 73, and the Azure, the newer sleeker model. He could recognize them even before seeing them, just by the way they sounded. He would just sit there, listening to everything, every little sound.
Francois: One day, I decided to build him something special: a blue sound box painted like the STM, with big, colorful buttons, built around a little Arduino circuit I had set up. Each button played a different metro sound. The doors opening, the motor starting, and the voice calling the stations. When he pressed those buttons, he wasn't just playing, he was traveling, imagining, building his own journeys.
Francois: We also spent a lot of time around the old Wurlitzer piano at home. It was right next to the kitchen table. Sometimes to help him eat, I'd start playing a few chords, and together we'd invent little songs, silly lyrics, all improvised.
Francois: And every time, I would record those moments on my phone. Children grow up so fast. Most people keep photos to remember those early years. But for me, I realized it was the recordings that captured it best. His little voice, his laughter, captured forever in sound.
Francois: Later on, I had the opportunity to create something deeply meaningful: the sound identity for the new REM network, a brand new extension of Montreal's transit system. While working on the REM sound, I dreamed of one day adding it to his blue box.
Francois: While designing it, I thought about him, about those afternoons, about how sound shaped his world. I asked him, "What should the REM sound like?" At first, he was imitating the STM metro melody. But then he added a few more notes, as if he was continuing the story, and I realized it was actually a really good idea. The REM, is after all, an extension of the STM network.
Francois: So that's what I did. I created something that felt like a continuation, the melodic phrase that could follow, in the same scale. And when we presented it to the client, they liked the concept. And funny enough, when the REM team was looking for the voice to announce the stations, they chose Caroline Dhavernas, who happens to be the daughter of Michèle Deslauriers, the voice everyone knows from the STM. A daughter continuing her mother's voice, just like I was continuing something with my son through sound. It felt meaningful.
Francois: Today when I think back, I realize we don't just have photographs of those years. We have recordings, little audio treasures, moments captured forever, not as images, but as sound. It seems like for us, sound became a landmark. A landmark in a world he can see less clearly, unfortunately. For me, it's my job, but it's also a bond of love with my son. It's sound that has allowed us, since he was born, to build something truly unique together.
[music out into music in: Wesley Slover - Sandra Robot]
Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of my sound agency, Defecto Sound. Hear more by following Defacto Sound on Instagram, or by visiting Defacto Sound dot com.
Other Voices: This episode was written and produced by the incredible listeners of Twenty Thousand Hertz. It was story edited by Casey Emmerling, with help from Grace East. It was mixed by Jade Dickey and Colin DeVarney, with original music by Wesley Slover.
A huge thanks to everyone who submitted a story for our Sound Off competition. This first one was such a success that we're going to make this a recurring event for Twenty Thousand Hertz. So start thinking about the sound story you’d like to tell, and stay tuned for details about the next round.
Finally, take a moment to subscribe to my Youtube channel, Dallas Taylor dot mp3. Over there, you can join me on behind the scenes trips to incredible audio locations, with all kinds of talented people. You can also find these stories on Instagram and TikTok under that same name, Dallas Taylor dot mp3.
Thanks for listening.
[music out]
